People

Sarah M. Dunifon (she/her) is a long-time STEM education, outreach, and evaluation professional. She is currently the Founder and Principal Evaluator of Improved Insights, which provides participatory and utilization-focused evaluation and assessment services for nonprofits, institutions, and museums. In her career, she’s been an environmental and conservation educator, a program manager, a research and evaluation associate, and a STEM equity professional. She obtained a Doctor of Education in Learning Sciences and Policy specializing in Out-of-School Learning from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. in Biology from Miami University, conducting field studies in Guyana, Costa Rica, and Belize, and obtained a BA in Anthropology and International Relations and Diplomacy from Ohio State University.

Sarah has experience with formative and summative evaluation, audience research, and educational research in fields like citizen science, conservation biology, inquiry-based education, and informal STEM learning. Sarah has been published in the International Zoo Educators Association Journal, Discover Magazine Blogs, Association for Women in Science Magazine, and the National Science Teachers Association Journal Science and Children, and currently serves as an article, session, and grant reviewer for Connected Science Learning, Underwriters Laboratory, STEM Learning Ecosystems, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.

Her work focuses on helping nonprofits and other organizations (particularly those with STEM and youth-based programming) to assess and communicate the impacts of their work. She is particularly interested in psychosocial effects on participants in informal learning and STEM-based programming, such as self-efficacy, values, and behavior.