Dr. Kelly Piccinino is the Director of Research Operations and Senior Research Associate at McClanahan Associates, Inc (MAI). Dr. Piccinino earned her bachelor’s degree from Stetson University and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida in the field of sociology. Dr. Piccinino is a seasoned mixed-methods evaluator, with 20 years of research experience. She has worked in a variety of settings: As a research associate at Research for Action; a research consultant for the Chicago Public Schools; a senior research analyst in the Office of Accountability for the Charlotte–Mecklenburg School (CMS) district; a telephone interviewer at Westat; and a telephone interviewer at Stetson’s Institute for Social Research (SISR).
As a research associate at Research for Action (RFA), Dr. Piccinino worked on a national, multi-site examination of the implementation and effectiveness of teacher-developed formative assessment tools for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She also coleads the 5-year mixed-methods evaluation of Project LIFT, a $55 million investment to drive a multifaceted reform effort in CMS’ lowest-performing schools.
While at CMS, Dr. Piccinino processed data requests coming from researchers outside the district, led the administration of the district-wide family survey (8,000 plus families), and supported the outcomes analysis for two large mixed-methods evaluations examining the CMS’ Teach For America program and the Small Schools Initiative through district, principal, teacher, and parent-level interviews. In addition to these positions, she gained valuable interviewing experience while at Westat, where she partnered with a variety of education and public health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Education, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the National Cancer Institute.
At MAI, Dr. Piccinino has led dozens of evaluations including the prospective longitudinal case study of 1,000 Days, Springboard Collaborative’s Springboard Summer to assess the effect of the program on student reading outcomes, PowerCorpsPHL evaluation and capacity-building initiative, the evaluation capacity-building evaluation of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law’s four multi-state advocacy programs, BBBSA e-mentoring evaluation, Target and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Play Everywhere Challenge formative evaluation, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s (Grantee) Relationship Management evaluation, two multi-year Amachi evaluations, the National Cares Mentoring Movement’s The Rising program evaluation, and the community attitudes assessment and media content analysis for the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Dr. Piccinino is currently serving as an evaluation coach providing intensive evaluation capacity-building support to six Philadelphia organizations through Pew Charitable Trusts’ Evaluation Capacity Building Initiative (ECBI) and the William Penn Foundation’s Social Impact Collaborative (SIC).
Dr. Piccinino is also currently serving as the project lead for multiple evaluations including the three-year local evaluation of the Rebuild Collaborative in Philadelphia funded through the JPMorgan Chase AdvancingCities Challenge, the implementation and outcomes evaluation of the Episcopal Community Services’ MindSet program, and Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law’s Legal Impact Network (LIN) qualitative study examining network member feedback.
