David Anderson
David Anderson joined the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy in 2004 and currently serves as its Vice President. Mr. Anderson received a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Duke University in 2004 and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Denver. Mr. Anderson played a central role in the development, launch, and operation of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Help Desk from the project’s inception in 2005, and served as the lead Help Desk moderator through October 2007. In this role, he provided personalized assistance to over 300 WWC Help Desk users.
Mr. Anderson has played a similar role in the establishment and operation of another Coalition Help Desk for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since 2005. His work on this project included leading the Coalition’s in-depth review of more than 100 evaluations of federally-funded math and science education programs and projects for the Congressionally-established Academic Competitiveness Council — a high-profile interagency initiative, chaired by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
Contact information: (202) 239-1248 or danderson@coalition4evidence.org
Jon Baron
Jon Baron is president of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that he founded in 2001. Since its founding, the Coalition has built a strong track record of success in working with key Executive Branch and Congressional policymakers to advance evidence-based reforms in major U.S. social programs. A recent independent assessment found that “the Coalition has successfully influenced legislative language, increased funding for evidence-based evaluations and programs, helped shape the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating Tool, and raised the level of debate in the policy process regarding standards of evidence.”
Based on this work, Mr. Baron was twice nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve on the National Board for Education Sciences (2004-2011). He currently serves as the Board’s Vice-Chair. He has also served on the National Academies’ Committee on Capitalizing on Science, Technology, and Innovation; and is an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, and recipient of the Society for Prevention Research’s Public Service Award (2006).
Prior to establishing the Coalition, Mr. Baron served as the Executive Director of the Presidential Commission on Offsets in International Trade (2000-2001), Program Manager for the Defense Department’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program (1995-2000), and Counsel to the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business (1989-1994).
Mr. Baron holds a law degree from Yale Law School, a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice University.
Contact information: (202) 683-8049 or jbaron@coalition4evidence.org
Deborah Gorman-Smith
Deborah Gorman-Smith is a research fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and principal investigator and director of the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention, one of 10 national Academic Centers of Excellence funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also serves as Distinguished Research Fellow with the Coalition for Evidence Based Policy. Dr. Gorman-Smith received her Ph.D. in Clinical-Developmental Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her program of research, grounded in a public health perspective, is focused on advancing knowledge about development, risk, and prevention of aggression and violence, with specific focus on minority youth living in poor urban settings.
Dr. Gorman-Smith has been or currently is principal or co-principal investigator on several longitudinal risk and preventive intervention studies funded by NICHD, NIDA, CDC-P, SAMHSA and the W.T. Grant Foundation. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Society for Prevention Research, in addition to her service on other national, state and university committees. She served as a visiting scholar at the Joint Center for Poverty Research at Northwestern University/University of Chicago. Dr. Gorman Smith has published extensively in areas related to youth violence, including the relationship between community characteristics, family functioning and aggression and violence, including partner violence and the impact of family-focused preventive interventions.
Contact information: (773) 256-5170 or dgormansmith@chapinhall.org.
Leslie McElligott
Leslie McElligott joined the Coalition for Evidence Based Policy in 2008 and currently serves as its Project Leader. Ms. McElligott holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona. Since joining the Coalition, she has conducted over a dozen evidence reviews for a wide variety of audiences and helped develop and carry out Coalition workshops and policy forums. Prior to joining the Coalition, Ms. McElligott worked for the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Bureau of Tobacco Education and Prevention as the Statewide Contract Manager. In that role, she worked closely with key state officials and service providers to improve the effectiveness of the state’s tobacco cessation initiatives.
Contact information: (202) 349-1130 or lmcelligott@coalition4evidence.org