Who We Are

Dr. Bill McKinney

Education:

B.A., Anthropology, Cleveland State University

M.A.A., Master of Applied Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park

Ph.D., Anthropology, Temple University

Bio: 

For 20 years, I have worked as a researcher, evaluator, advisor, and consultant. In all of these roles, I have used my diverse skill set to better understand situations and systems and apply that knowledge to improve them.

Throughout my career, I have worked in interdisciplinary settings, which has allowed me to expand my skills and areas of expertise while contributing to innovation.  The wide range of abilities and knowledge that I have amassed through my interdisciplinary work informs all of my research and writing.  I am committed to utilizing a participatory approach to finding answers and solutions to the questions and problems I encounter.

I have served as primary investigator on projects ranging from multi-million dollar, national, comparative research and evaluation projects to more intimate work with grassroots and newly emergent organizations.  My current and former clients include national and local foundations, federal, state and city governments, universities, as well as community-based, non-profit organizations.  I have served or currently serve as a consultant or advisor for community based institutions such as Men In Motion in the Community, as well as the Philadelphia School District, and the Philadelphia Police District.

Areas of Interest:

Community Based Organizations; Urban; Education; Youth; Access to Higher Education; Violence Intervention; Libraries; Settlement Houses; Organizational and Institutional Analysis; Reentry of the Previously Incarcerated; Public Health

Methodological Specialties:

I am skilled in both Qualitative and Quantitative research methods including but not limited to; Ethnography; Focus Groups; Interviews; Social Network Analysis; Community Based Participatory Research; Evaluation; Curriculum Development; Organizational Analysis.

Email Address:

McKinney

Please feel free to contact me.  I will be happy to share more information about my experience and look forward to speaking with you about your project.

Dr. Chaya Spears

Education:

B.S., Anthropology, Northern Illinois University

M.A., Anthropology, Northern Illinois University

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Kansas

Bio: 

I am a cultural anthropologist and research faculty member at Wake Forest School of Medicine.  My advanced training in anthropology has focused on a wide variety of topics including industrial agriculture and the environment, tourism, economic development, participatory methodologies, and rural Midwestern communities.  Professionally, my training has focused on needs assessments, health education and health behavior, and program design and evaluation among rural, underserved, and migrant immigrant populations.  My research experience has established me as an interdisciplinary, community-based participatory researcher and has provided me the opportunity to establish collegial relationships with individuals from a wide variety of educational, social, and professional backgrounds.

I have a great passion for democratic, participatory approaches to research and policy development that emphasize the importance of rigorous science to the design and implementation of meaningful, accurate, and effective programs, policies, and plans.  Consequently, I am a proponent of community-based participatory research methods and believe that through mutual respect and humble interaction scientists can serve to empower communities and community members to address the issues of greatest concern to them with the most relevant, accurate, and effective scientific methods.  In practice, this means that scientists, like myself, should seek to establish trusting and mutually respectful relationships with community-based research partners and work in equal collaboration with them through all stages of research design, execution, and conclusion.  Through such collaboration, scientists can facilitate the creation, implementation, and evaluation of successful, relevant, and accurate policies, programs, and plans that are relevant to the needs and desires of communities.

I am a skilled qualitative researcher with deep appreciation for the intimate and invaluable relationship between qualitative and quantitative methodologies.  I believe that sound qualitative data and analysis are foundational to meaningful and accurate quantitative understandings of knowledge and behavior.  I am a strong proponent of mixed methods research and will draw upon the complementary skills and expertise of my fellow associates at Ethnomatters as I work to effectively address client needs and concerns.

Currently, I serve as Co-Principal Investigator on a health education program development and evaluation mini-grant through NIOSH/National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety and as Co-Investigator on a study that is funded by NIEHS and explores the matter of scientific integrity in community-based participatory research.

Areas of Interest:

Participatory Research Methods, Rural Communities, Health Education Research, Health Behavior Research, Economic Development, Tourism, Agriculture, Environment and Development, Process and Program Design and Evaluation

Methodological Specialties:

Qualitative data collection and analysis methods, including:  ethnography; semi-structured interviews; focus groups; community-based participatory research; evaluation; curriculum development; saliency analysis.

Email Address:

Spears

I am eager to discuss your research, consultation, or evaluation needs and the possibility that we might work together to address them with excellence, integrity, and enthusiasm.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with your questions or requests for more information.

Dr. Michael Bitz

Education:

B.A., Music (Major)/English (Minor), Columbia University

Ed.M., Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Ed.D., Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Bio: 

I am an experienced researcher, practitioner, and innovator in the field of education. My work has ranged from large-scale research projects with quantitative and qualitative measures to curriculum development with international partners. From a research perspective, I have the seasoned professional skills to assess and analyze a problem or question, then design appropriate tools and procedures to collect accurate, viable results. My research is guided by current methods in educational research and a firm root in ethical data collection, analysis, and reporting. My most notable research includes the longitudinal study “Learning In and Through the Arts” at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the NSF funded “Evaluating a Text-to-Scene Generation System as an Aid to Literacy” at Columbia University’s Department of Computer Science. I am on the editorial review boards of Afterschool Matters and Sequential Art Narrative in Education (SANE) Journal. I am a book proposal reviewer for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and a Co-curator for NCTE’s National Gallery of Writing.

Along with my research background, I am a recognized leader in curriculum development and program implementation. In 2001, I launched the Comic Book Project (www.ComicBookProject.org) with a group of middle schoolers in New York City—original comic books written and published by young people. Since then, the Project has reached over 100,000 youths across the country and around the world, and has been featured by the Washington Post, New York Times, National Public Radio, Associated Press, and many other media. I published two books about my experiences running the Comic Book Project: When Commas Meet Kryptonite: Classroom Lessons from the Comic Book Project (Teachers College Press), and Manga High: Literacy, Identity, and Coming of Age in an Urban High School (Harvard Education Press). This latter book was recently translated into Japanese and published in Japan by Iwanami Shoten Publishers. In 2006, I collaborated with Dr. Bill McKinney to launch the Youth Music Exchange (www.YouthMusicExchange.org): record labels owned and managed by youths. This program has been implemented in New York City, Indianapolis, San Diego, and Tulsa. These educational innovations led to me receiving the first Mind Trust Fellowship in Educational Entrepreneurship in 2008.

Currently, I am Assistant Professor of Literacy and Teacher Education at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and Honorary Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. I am also the founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Center for Educational Pathways (www.edpath.org), dedicated to developing and distributing educational innovations for the 21^st century.

Areas of Interest:

Educational Research of all kinds, Arts in Education, Curriculum Development, Program Design and Evaluation, Educational Technology, Literacy, Student Engagement, School Turnaround Models, Teacher Development, Juvenile Justice, Special Education, International Education, Urban Education

Methodological Specialties:

Quantitative measures including pre- and post-test designs; statistical analysis; growth models. Qualitative data collection and analysis methods, including: emergent theme analysis and codebook development; survey design, distribution, and analysis; interview collection and coding; focus groups; case study analysis.

Email Address:

Bitz

I look forward to learning more about your project. I very much enjoy discussing new ideas and solutions for long-standing problems. I believe that together, along with all the expertise at Ethnomatters, we can achieve great things.

Dr. Keith M. Sturges

Education:

B.A., Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park

M.A.A., Master of Applied Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park

Ph.D., Cultural Studies, The University of Texas at Austin

Bio: 

I am a Nashville-based applied anthropologist who specializes in equitable access to high quality educational and public assistance programs, ecological perspectives on organizations, the role of individual and group identity in complex change, and stakeholder engagement approaches to program planning. My primary role has been to capture, clarify, and broker the processes that lead to complex organizational change.  Using a consensus-building and strengths-based approach, I engage stakeholders to collaborate on building sustainable organizational and human capacity.

During my career, I have provided strategic planning, applied research and evaluation, and technical assistance services to community-based nonprofits, government and municipal agencies, and education organizations.  Recently, I facilitated a developmental evaluation for KnowledgeWorks’ Transformational Dialogue for Public Education, which resulted in a revised program model and implementation plan.  I also served as a faculty member at the University of Illinois where I conducted strategic planning and formative evaluation for the Chicago Public School system, the University of Chicago, and the Illinois State Board of Education.  I have also worked in K-12 settings (as a Federal Grants Liaison and high school administrator), the nonprofit world as a program evaluator, research associate, project director, and Executive Director.  My current projects include work with the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute, the Men’s Health Coalition, the University of Texas at El Paso, and several community-based nonprofits.  I also serve as an advisory board member for the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and am an invited member of Kentucky Department of Education’s Professional Learning Task Force.

Areas of Interest:

Strategic Planning; Organizational Dynamics; Capacity Building for Public Service Organizations; Adult Learning and Professional Development; Education Transitions (9^th-to-10the Grades, and Secondary to Postsecondary); Culture in Education; Education Management; Education Reform; and Community Assets.

Methodological Specialties:

My methodological areas of specialization include: Ethnography; Observations; Interviews; Focus Groups; Mixed Method Research and Evaluation; Participatory Design; Strategic Planning and Meeting Facilitation; Survey Design; Evaluation Capacity Building and Research Use; Logic Modeling.

Email Address:

Sturges