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Randi Korn Randi started RK&A in 1989 after working in a variety of museums including art, history, science, and natural history and holding positions such as executive director, exhibit designer, interpretive planner, and evaluator. With a passion for museums and desire to strengthen the relationship between museums and people, Randi is dedicated to using evaluation as a learning tool to improve museum practice. One example of research that has propelled staff learning is the Framework for Engaging with Art research that Randi conducted with the Dallas Museum of Art that identified four clusters—each with a distinct way of engaging with art. Over the last several years, Randi has focused on creating new services to help museums and other nonprofits excel as organizations so they can achieve impact for the public good. One new service is impact-driven planning designed to help staff align their resources and programs around the impact they would like their organization to achieve. Her extensive experience with museums provides invaluable insight as she works with museum leadership, staff, and boards to pursue impact. In a recent publication, “The Case for Holistic Intentionality,” Randi underscores the firm’s commitment to helping museums become more intentional and purposeful in planning and daily work. Ultimately the firm strives to use impact-driven planning and rigorous evaluation to help museums demonstrate, with evidence, the ways in which museums contribute to the public good and make a difference in people’s lives and communities. Stephanie Downey Stephanie has conducted educational research and evaluation since 1995. Drawing from her Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology, she is interested in applying anthropological research methods, such as in-depth interviewing and observations, to evaluation to help museums understand their audiences and improve practice. Her interest lies in examining education systems with the understanding that learning is complex, situated in a cultural and personal context, and ongoing across the lifetime of an individual. Through her work, she has come to understand and address the challenge of detecting and measuring learning in informal environments. More specifically, Stephanie focuses on using rubrics to measure the impact of informal education environments, for example in her work with RACE: Are We So Different? exhibition and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. During her long tenure at RK&A, Stephanie’s qualitative approach and experience has expanded the firm’s capacity and contributed to the firm’s high-quality reputation. ACE Everett ACE has led nonprofit management consulting projects since 1999, drawing on her undergraduate education in business and art and MBA from the University of Maryland. She is interested in applying business and nonprofit theory to help museums become more effective in fulfilling mission and achieving impact. Her theory-driven background complements Randi’s practice-driven experience, reinforcing the holistic approach that the firm’s organizational planning work requires for museums to become more intentional. RK&A’s organizational planning projects with the Baltimore Museum of Art; Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture; and Whitney Museum of American Art have utilized ACE’s expertise to build capacity and empower change, while complex organizational dynamics have fostered her continued learning. Rachel Schiff Rachel is an evaluator interested in how museum contexts and programming facilitate learning and community connection for diverse audiences. Her background in clinical psychology and studio art, and her graduate degree from Claremont Graduate University in organizational psychology, provide a range of skills in both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate and describe the relationships between museums and individuals and communities. Debbie Siegel Debbie comes to museum planning and evaluation with extensive academic training in basic psychological research as well as experience in applied research and evaluation in a variety of informal learning settings. With a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, her doctoral work focused on children’s cognitive development using experimental and qualitative methods to better understand how preschool children learn to use artifacts in both culturally conventional and creative ways in the context of an everyday parent-child activity. As a research fellow with the NSF-funded Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), Debbie participated in an interdisciplinary endeavor with other researchers, educators, museum practitioners, and evaluators, aiming to bridge research and practice on learning across settings. The combination of her academic training, experience in CILS, and her expertise in conducting research and evaluation in institutions such as the Exploratorium and Sesame Workshop, has led to a proficiency in every phase of research including identifying research questions, designing qualitative and quantitative methods of evaluation for those questions, interviewing and observing parents and young children , designing coding schemes to quantify observational data, coding, managing and analyzing data, and report writing. Debbie comes to RK&A with strong interests in using rigorous research methods and interdisciplinary approaches to help museums create and improve informal learning environments. Amanda Krantz Amanda is an evaluator interested in conducting reliable studies that help museums create optimal experiences for visitors. Her undergraduate studies in art history and mathematics and her M.S. degree in Art Education from The Pennsylvania State University offer a versatile background well suited to the range of projects RK&A attracts. Learning Through Art (LTA) research at the Guggenheim is an example of a project that utilizes her skills and background and lets her pursue her interests in problem-solving and critical thinking in the arts. In addition, she enjoys studying new, exploratory ideas, for example at the Dallas Museum of Art’s Center for Creative Connections, where she evaluated how adults use an interactive learning space. Amanda seeks to challenge herself, ask questions, and pursue knowledge to support her own education and that of our museum partners. Emily Skidmore Emily is interested in studying and understanding human behavior and learning experiences in museums, supported by her undergraduate degree in biological anthropology and anatomy and graduate degree in Museum Education from The George Washington University. As an evaluator, she uses both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods to probe the nuances inherent in the informal learning environment and uses the power of evaluation to help museums create the best possible experiences for learning and meaning-making. Emily pursues her deep passion for studying learning in natural environments in her work with the NSF-funded Citizen Science Program with the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico. Shayne Gardner Shayne enjoys creating processes that enable RK&A staff to carry out their work at maximum efficiency. She draws on her extensive experience in office management and administration in both the nonprofit and for profit sectors. Given her problem-solving skills, she is keenly interested in RK&A projects that focus on organizational process, especially remedial evaluations and museum planning projects. She firmly believes that every part of the museum, even administrative departments, contributes to and benefits the whole organization. |