Graduate Students & New Evaluators TIG Week: New to Evaluation? Start Local by Elizabeth Sweeney

Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2025

This week, the members of the Graduate Students and New Evaluators (GSNE) TIG share various tips, tricks, resources, and points of view that can be helpful for students and new evaluators. We hope both evaluators, new and old, will review this material and share the resources and stories with each other.

-Liz Rojas (GSNE, Co-Chair), Christine Liboon (GSNE, Program Chair), and GSNE Leadership Team

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Sweeney, and I am an Evaluation Associate at the Center for Research Evaluation (CERE) at the University of Mississippi. While some of my past professional roles touched on evaluation, I am a relative newcomer to the field: I joined CERE as a postdoc two years ago after completing my PhD in education.

One of the most rewarding experiences for me as an early evaluator has been getting involved with my local AEA affiliate: the Gulf Coast Evaluators Network, or GCEval as we call it. GCEval is for evaluation practitioners living or working in the three Gulf states of Alabama, Louisiana, or Mississippi.

I joined GCEval soon after joining CERE. Appreciating the benefits of being involved in smaller, regional professional organizations, I volunteered for a position on their leadership committee and was tasked with serving as the communications lead, a position I have held for the past year. When I came on board, my primary duty was to gather GCEval news and announcements and publish a quarterly newsletter via email. Later I began hosting a monthly virtual meetup where members can drop in to say hello, exchange ideas, provide support, and get to know each other in an informal setting. 

Lessons Learned

Joining my local AEA affiliate has helped me:

• Establish professional relationships within my region. Engaging with GCEval has allowed me to get to know evaluators and develop a sense of the evaluation landscape in our area. It has provided an opportunity to collaborate with evaluators working in contexts other than mine (a university-based center), such as local nonprofits and small independent firms. I have also been able to connect with evaluators affiliated with other universities. It has broadened my evaluation worldview and expanded my network.  

• Strengthen leadership and communication skills. Serving on the leadership committee has deepened my engagement with evaluators in the region, while allowing me to hone practical skills in a collaborative and supportive environment. As part of GCEval’s initiative to expand its network in the Gulf states, I recently presented at a session for evaluators working in the healthcare space in my home state of Mississippi. I brushed up on my design and communication skills in crafting the electronic newsletter, and I took the lead on establishing the monthly virtual member meetup, which has been an effective way to build the GCEval community. 

• Find avenues for professional development and collaboration. For all members, GCEval coordinates a quarterly speaker series as well as a listserv for sharing resources and opportunities, both of which have benefitted me. Through my leadership role, I supported a grant application that resulted in a multi-year funding award to GCEval for expanding its operations. Earlier this year I was part of a multi-organizational team (we partnered with another local affiliate and a nonprofit), forged through GCEval connections, that submitted a proposal to present at the American Evaluation Association conference. (Fingers crossed! We’ll have the decision by the time you are reading this.)

Get Involved

My experience participating in my local AEA affiliate network has helped me get involved and feel part of the community as a newcomer to the field of evaluation. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend that you reach out to your local network to see what opportunities there are for you to be a part!

Rad Resource

Find your local AEA affiliate.

AEA is hosting GSNE Week with our colleagues in the Graduate Student and New Evaluators AEA Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our GSNE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage 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.