10:01 a.m., Oct. 28, 2008----Leslie Cooksy, associate professor in the School of Education and the Delaware Education Research and Development Center in the University of Delaware's College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, has been elected incoming president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).

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AEA is an international professional association of more than 5,000 members who are involved in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness.

The association's mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods, increase evaluation use and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. Cooksy has been a member of the AEA board, associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, and chairperson of the Public Affairs Committee. She also served as a member of AEA's Evaluation Policy Task Force. As president, she will be responsible for representing AEA and for establishing the theme for the association's annual conference.

Cooksy is a former member of the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Program Evaluation and Methodology Division. She also recently served as an evaluation consultant to the World Bank. Her experiences working on international projects and as a former Peace Corps volunteer have contributed to her expertise in the field.

In addition to her federal and international experience, Cooksy directed a center at the University of California at Davis where she was responsible for improving the evaluation capacities of local public health offices. She also has served as director of the UD Center for Community Research and Service.

Cooksy teaches evaluation courses and is developing a new interdisciplinary master's degree in evaluation at UD. Recently, she has brought some of the leading scholars in the evaluation field to campus for a colloquium series, “Perspectives on Evaluating Programs, Policies and Organizations.”

Cooksy says she is looking forward to her new role with AEA. “Serving as president of AEA will give me a great opportunity to increase the visibility of the new graduate program and all the excellent evaluation work going on at the University of Delaware through its research and service centers and academic units,” she said.

For more information about the graduate program or the colloquium series, contact Cooksy at [ljcooksy@udel.edu].

Article by Beth Chajes