DCE3 Conference Week: Reflecting Back and Looking Forward: See You at #2026DCE3! by by Emily Cipolla, Amy Lebrecht, Helen Mittmann, Riley Redd, and Nate Varnell

Date: Saturday, February 14, 2026

This is the DC Emerging Evaluators Exchange (DCE3) Organizing Committee (Emily Cipolla, Amy Lebrecht, Helen Mittmann, Riley Redd, and Nate Varnell) thanking you again for tuning into the DCE3 AEA365 blog this week! We hope you enjoyed hearing from our organizing committee, faculty mentors, and past presenters. We wrap up the week with lessons learned from the Organizing Committee and what we’re looking forward to in 2026.

Being a part of the DCE3 Organizing Committee connects us with a wider evaluator community of both fellow emerging evaluators and seasoned professionals. We have been incredibly grateful to Washington Evaluators for their support and presence as they have helped sponsor portions of our event each year, in addition to mentorship opportunities with faculty and evaluation professionals who volunteer their time and expertise to work with us year round!

Hot Tip

Like engagement in evaluation, including emerging evaluators throughout the entire lifecycle of the conference planning process allows us to produce an event that is relevant and useful to other emerging evaluators. Centering and amplifying the voices of emerging evaluators allows us to speak to the needs and interests of emerging evaluators in every decision. Planning DCE3 also offers us valuable experiences with conference planning logistics. We gain exposure to a variety of evaluation topics and seasoned professionals. These experiences uniquely set us up for leadership opportunities in other organizations and amplify our evaluation skills.

Lessons Learned

Ultimately, conference planning and presenting can be a daunting task for students. As such, we have experienced and learned that:

• Empowering students to organize a conference is an opportunity to foster the next generation of leaders. These tasks do not require specialized skills, rather only experience and practice. Students often lack the confidence to lead and facilitate boldly, but DCE3 offers a safe space and gentle nudge to exercise these muscles.
• A key rewarding experience of the conference is an opportunity to co-create important topics relevant to the field. It is especially rewarding for faculty mentors to observe the Organizing Committee think creatively and innovatively as they design and execute a conference that would be meaningful to them and their peers and solve unique and complex problems.
• We practice what we teach. By incorporating participant feedback and discussion about what worked well and what did not, we exercise our evaluative thinking skills to make the conference a little better each year!

Rad Resources

This year our conference theme is “Navigating Evaluation Careers and Identities” focusing on how evaluative thinking and skills can be utilized across fields and sectors. As the evaluation field continues to evolve, we’re excited for this chance to share experiences, exchange ideas, and strengthen connections across the evaluation community. For this upcoming year, our program will feature keynote speaker Dr. Dominica McBride, along with panelists Dr. Susan Jenkins, Dr. Ted Kniker, Maria Montenegro, and Veronica Olazabal.

You can register now to join us for the 2026 DC Emerging Evaluators Exchange virtual conference or in-person networking event on Friday, April 24th! Students, new evaluators, or seasoned professionals from across the world are all invited to register for this event.

If you are a graduate student or recent alumni of a university within the DC region, you are also eligible to submit a proposal to present. See the Call for Proposals for full details.

Hope to see you at the conference in April!

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.