Network Coordinators

Matt Keene

Social Scientist
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Matt Keene is working with the U.S. EPA’s Evaluation Support Division to research evaluation practice and theory across environmental organizations and disciplines and apply that learning to enhance the quality of EPA program evaluations.  His past work has focused on improving the practices of the environmental community through evaluation, adaptive management, and collaborative learning and decision-making.  Some highlights from his work include assessing the effectiveness of protected areas; designing and conducting socioeconomic surveys of resource users; developing market-based and spatial policy alternatives for fisheries; facilitating collaborative efforts to design measurable and adaptive marine protected area management plans; and preparing draft language for the California Marine Life Protection Act.

Matt’s graduate work analyzed methods of evaluating protected areas and proposed an approach to measuring the success of the global system of marine protected areas.  Matt has a Master’s degree in Coastal Environmental Management from Duke University and a BS in Biology from Virginia Tech University.

Katherine Dawes

Division Director, Evaluation Support Division
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Katherine Dawes has served as the Director of the Evaluation Support Division in the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 2000. This division conducts — and enables partners throughout EPA to more effectively conduct — program evaluations and analyses that inform management decisions, enhance organizational learning, promote innovation and foster environmental results. The division also manages a training curriculum for environmental program evaluation and performance measurement. As the Division Director, Katherine is particularly engaged in networking with all levels of government, academia and non-governmental organizations to promote new developments and new information regarding innovation analysis and environmental evaluation. Katherine is an active member of the American Evaluation Association and its Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. Since joining EPA in 1990, Katherine has worked in the brownfields and underground storage tanks programs, and on innovation and environmental justice issues. She is also a founding member and former Trustee of the Environmental Leadership Program, a non-profit, non-partisan organization designed to train and support the next generation of environmental leaders.

Christina Kakoyannis, Ph.D.

Evaluation Officer
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation