aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Jack joined ARTD in 2018 after completing his Honours thesis in behavioural ecology the previous year, during which he tried to teach colours to jumping spiders. He augments his skills and insights from ecology to the public policy ecosystem, thinking critically about evaluation and analysis approaches in the environmental sector. He is passionate about taking complex concepts and data and communicating them in ways that are accessible, useful and targeted to his audiences. Jack develops infographics that deftly communicate complex theories and processes.

Jack recently used a rubric approach to evaluate a complex state government program in the environmental sector. This approach allowed him and his team to define the progress of more than 50 actions that the government agency had committed to, and the evidence required to measure such progress. Throughout the data collection process, program staff commented that they wished they had a similar rubric when they wrote their action plan - this would have enabled them to understand what successful achievement of an action looked like and provided a goalpost for them to work towards. The end product was a thorough and defensible evaluation that captured the full scope of a program's work.