The American Evaluation Association (AEA) recently recognized Anne Vo, PhD, assistant professor of clinical medical education and director of educational research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, for her “outstanding evaluation practice and dedication to both furthering the interest of the evaluation field and the association.”

Anne Vo, right, receives the 2018 AEA Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award from the American Evaluation Association. (Photo/Courtesy Anne Vo)

Vo received the 2018 AEA Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award during the organization’s annual award luncheon on Nov. 2. The award is presented to promising new evaluators during the first five years after completion of a master’s or doctoral degree and whose work is consistent with the AEA Guiding Principles for Evaluators, the AEA states.

“It is a great honor to receive the Marcia Guttentag Award — one that was named for an evaluation vanguard who leveraged her scholarship to advance discourse on issues of inclusion, representation, and positionality,” Vo wrote. “The ubiquity and salience of these issues throughout our social histories underscore the importance of evaluative thinking, systems theory, and situated practice as instruments of meaningful change. And, perhaps now more than ever, for evaluation to continue explicitly speaking truth to power. I am humbled and privileged to be associated with such an esteemed thought leader and deeply appreciative of the invaluable support from mentors and colleagues who made such an honor possible.”

On its website, the AEA states that its mission “is to improve evaluation practices and methods, increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession, and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action.”