Meet the Partners

Laura is a sociologist and qualitative methodologist with experience in both the practitioner and academic worlds. She specializes in participatory learning, social science communication, applied research, change management, and building bridges between social science and practice in projects that support democracy, human rights and accountability around the world. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley.

Bret is a political scientist with eight years of experience researching and evaluating democracy programs. At the International Republican Institute (IRI), he managed research projects related to political party development, civil society and social movements, anti-corruption, political communication, behavioral science, and social scientific research methods. Prior to IRI, at Analyst Institute, he managed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for domestic civic organizations to help optimize their political and civic engagement programs. He received a PhD in Political Science and MA in Security Policy Studies from the George Washington University, and a BA in Political Science and Russian Studies from Stetson University. 

Kate is an evaluator and research manager with over ten years of experience designing, implementing and evaluating democracy programs. She specializes in qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, social science research methods, multi-site portfolio evaluations, organizational evaluation capacity development, and translating research into actionable programming. She holds an M.A. in Democracy & Governance from Georgetown University.