Michelle (Shelly) Sloper is an Associate Professor of Evaluation Practice for the Claremont Evaluation Center (CEC) at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and Co-Director of YDEval (www.ydeval.com), splitting her time between Claremont, CA, and Haines, Alaska. Sloper received her PhD in Positive Developmental Psychology and Evaluation from Claremont Graduate University in 2016. Her academic journey at CGU was shaped by an appreciation of the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective and the Applied Development Science (ADS) movement.
Since starting evaluation work in 2009, Sloper has served as Evaluation Project Manager, Principal Investigator (PI), or Co-PI for 30+ evaluation projects, supervising teams of graduate students and professionals to conduct comprehensive evaluations with diverse program partners across the United States. These evaluations include national evaluations of several youth development initiatives, training and capacity building efforts, programs aiming to reduce hunger among children and college students, youth financial education programs, curriculum materials for middle and high school students, youth sports programming, and access and quality initiatives for early childhood education efforts. She possesses a particular expertise for evaluations of expanded learning programs (e.g., afterschool programs and outside-of-school-time [OST] programs).
Sloper strives to make evaluation useful for her organizational partners and responsive to their needs. Building collaborative relationships with youth-serving organizations is the first step in changing attitudes toward evaluation and promoting the value of evaluation as an important tool for decision-making and continuous quality improvement, as opposed to accountability.
When Sloper is not at her desk, she enjoys being outside, paddleboarding with friends, reading fiction novels, listening to podcasts on long walks, spending time with her family (especially her four incredible nieces), and serving as a School Board Member for the Haines Borough School District. In 2017, Sloper was awarded the Alumni Emerging Leader Award from the University of Alaska Anchorage.