Dr John Gargani is an evaluator with 30 years of experience and eclectic interests. He is President of the evaluation consulting firm Gargani + Company, served as President of the American Evaluation Association in 2016, coauthored the book Scaling Impact: Innovation for the Public Good, and has directed evaluations ranging from multi-site randomized controlled trials to early-stage innovation design. He is eager to engage conference participants in discussions related to impact, scaling, value, value for money, and AI in evaluation.
John spends most of his time conducting research, writing, speaking, and teaching on topics related to impact, scaling, and value. He believes evaluations should reflect and advance the diverse values held by the people affected. Perhaps controversially, he argues that quantitative methods can help evaluators achieve this by deepening their qualitative understanding of program impacts. He is putting this philosophy to the test by researching how AI may be used to evaluate the quality of classroom instruction and developing new methods for evaluating “value for money” from multiple perspectives without measuring value in monetary units (the latter will be discussed in a panel during the conference).
John teaches graduate students about evaluation, social entrepreneurship, program design, and impact measurement, most recently at Claremont Graduate University and University of Pennsylvania. He also offers professional development workshops around the world on a variety of topics, including how to scale the impact of social innovations.