Dr.
Elena Tamanas Ragusa, President and Founder of Drive Evaluation Studio,
is an organizational and community psychologist. As a consultant, Elena
uses her expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods,
program assessment, systems evaluation, and organizational strategy to
serve as a capacity builder, evaluator, critical thought partner, and
coach to nonprofits, foundations, and universities. Elena is passionate
about working with groups to use data to inform their work, determine
and build on what is working in their practices, and tell the story
about their impact on their community. Before building out the Studio,
Elena was the senior executive director of enrollment strategy and
analytics for Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Prior to that, Elena
designed, managed, and directed research and evaluation for K-12 and
college access programming, served as a project manager at a national
research and evaluation consulting firm, and consulted to public school
districts on issues of organizational effectiveness and research methods
courses for high school students.
Elena stays connected to students and theory in the classroom,
serving as part-time faculty for undergraduate and graduate students in
psychology. Her teaching includes program evaluation, participatory
evaluation, community psychology, I/O psychology, social psychology,
adult learning and training, and qualitative research methods. Her
research interests include pathways toward psychological empowerment for
underrepresented youth (building from her dissertation research in
2010), participatory evaluation and engaging community voice as
strategies to effect systems change, evaluative thinking as an
organizational development intervention, and the power of data
visualization and storytelling in community.
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Faculty and Administration Biographies 
