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2022-2024 Board of New Mexico Evaluators



Contact us at nmeval@gmail.com

Contact us at nmeval@gmail.com

Tamara Grybko

President

Tamara Grybko has over 20 years’ experience in informal learning environments, working in museums, libraries, and cultural centers. She began her career as the Collections Manager at the Boston Children’s Museum, where she developed a passion for facilitating lifelong learning and connecting individuals, families, and communities through meaningful and inclusive experiences. Tamara has developed dozens of programs and managed projects for students, teachers, adults, children, and families. Most recently, Tamara was the Program Data & Evaluation Manager at Explora Science Center and Children’s Museum. 

Michele Banner

President-elect

Michele Banner is the Associate Director of Crimson Research, a program evaluation agency at New Mexico State University (NMSU), and a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Public Health Sciences at NMSU.  She has over 20 years of experience as a researcher and evaluator in both the private sector and academia across a variety of disciplines.  Most recently she has led several grants in the area of mental health awareness education and stigma reduction as well as varied evaluation efforts for the Doña Ana County Health and Human Services Department.  While at Crimson Research she has conducted evaluations in the southern NM border region, Juárez, El Paso, and nationally, maintaining a focus on health disparities, marginalized populations, and achieving equity.  Her doctorate and Master’s degrees are in Social Psychology.

Mitch Herz

VP of Finance

Mitch has extensive experience with data and evaluation in the education sector. His graduate school training focused on research methods and program evaluation, and he has worked as an evaluator and program administrator with the Legislative Education Study Committee, Albuquerque Public Schools, and the Public Education Department since coming to New Mexico. Currently, he works as a School Accountability Researcher with WestEd, a national research, development, and service organization that takes on some of the most demanding challenges in education and human development. He is a former teacher and is committed to helping educators use data to better inform their decision-making processes.

Rissa Lane

VP of Communications

Rissa Lane is an Evaluator at Apex, an Evaluation consulting firm in Albuquerque. Rissa received her Master of Science in Population Health Sciences from the University of Wisconsin - Madison before moving to New Mexico. At Apex, Rissa's leads the evaluation of state-funded school-based health center programs in Colorado and Massachusetts while also supporting other public health and education program evaluation efforts. Previously, Rissa support evaluation efforts of FoodWIse, Wisconsin's federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. Rissa seeks to support programs and efforts to promote health, education, and equity through her work as an evaluator. 

Morgan Occhino

VP of Membership

Morgan Occhino has experience in evaluation, social science research, and clinical health research and has worked in academia, the nonprofit sector, and private industry. Her background includes program evaluation, research design, implementation, data analysis, and dissemination. Morgan has experience managing large federal contracts and grants with topics including COVID-19, chronic conditions, behavioral health, and social determinates of health. Currently, Morgan is an evaluator at a national non-profit, OCHIN, and leads the evaluation for their HRSA Health Center Control Network (HCCN) and Community Health Worker initiative. Throughout her work, she facilitates collaboration between program populations and clients to build trusting relationships.

Nancy Hood

Past President

Nancy Hood has almost 20 years of experience planning and evaluating multi-faceted efforts to improve public health, behavioral health, affordable housing, workforce development, and intergenerational poverty. She has worked in local and federal government, academic, and nonprofit settings in New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, and Georgia. Her passion is to help organizations integrate data collection into practice and use data to improve service delivery and outcomes for participants and communities. Nancy is a Senior Public Health Researcher at Westat. She has a Master's degree in public health from Emory University and a Ph.D. in public health from Ohio State University with a focus on health promotion, research methods, and biostatistics. She has served on the board of New Mexico Evaluators for three years. 

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