Dr. Debra Rog is a Westat Vice President and President of the Rockville Institute with over 30 years of experience in research and evaluation, often involving low-income and vulnerable populations. Her methodological expertise covers a range of designs and techniques, from developmental evaluation and evaluability assessment to outcome studies involving quasi-experimental and mixed-methods deigns, to multisite evaluations involving a range of experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and innovative techniques such as applying social network analysis and outcome harvesting. Throughout her career, Dr. Rog has directed numerous evaluation studies of homeless and housing interventions and systems, mental health and substance abuse interventions, public health programs and initiatives, and criminal justice initiatives, among other areas. Before joining Westat in January 2007, she served as director of the Washington office of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Evaluation and Program Improvement (CEPI) for 17 years. Between 1987 and 1989, she was Associate Director of the Office of Programs for the Homeless Mentally Ill, National Institute of Mental Health where she developed a research and evaluation program.
Dr. Rog is a recognized expert in evaluation practice and applied research design, and has served as the co-editor of the Sage Publication Applied Social Research Methods Series (50+ textbooks to date), the Sage Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods, and the forthcoming Evaluators’ Handbook for Guilford Press. She is the Associate Director for faculty of The Evaluators’ Institute, as well as a faculty member for over 20 years. She has to her credit numerous publications on evaluation methodology, housing, homelessness, poverty, mental health, and program and policy development and has contributed and served on the editorial boards of the Encyclopedia of Homelessness, and the Encyclopedia of Evaluation and currently on the board of the New Directions for Evaluation. A member of the American Evaluation Association since its inception as well as a member of its two predecessor organizations, she has served in a number of capacities for AEA. She served as AEA’s 2009 president, as well as two terms as a board member, the 1990 Local Arrangements chair, the 1996 Annual Meeting Program co-chair, and on the Board Orientation Committee, Awards committee, and Membership Committee. She has been recognized for her evaluation work by the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Evaluation Association, the Eastern Evaluation Research Society, and the Knowledge Utilization Society.