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Dr. Lisa McDonald is a natural resource economist with more than 25 years of experience in environmental compliance and policy.  She has led the development of both economic impact tools used to evaluate large investment decisions and conceptual models to evaluate benefits of restoration projects. Dr. McDonald also has led or completed several socioeconomic and environmental justice impact analyses for various projects, including evaluating changes in land use policies, watershed management studies, restoration projects, and energy and infrastructure development. She often applies various economic analysis techniques in these studies, including economic impact analysis, benefit-cost analysis, financial modeling, and market and non-market valuation.

Douglas W. Elmendorf, Ph.D., is Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He served as Dean of the Kennedy School from 2016 to 2024 and was previously Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 to 2015.Elmendorf has held senior economic positions with the Federal Reserve Board, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the Treasury Department, where he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy. He is a widely respected economist who has deep knowledge of many of Abt’s core research areas, including health care policy and approaches to increasing economic security.Elmendorf is the author of more than 30 publications and has testified before Congress on economic issues 50 times since 2005. 

Olga Zues, a health-system and financing specialist, has 20 years of experience in international development. She focuses on the design and implementation of comprehensive reform strategies to strengthen health systems and public finance management. Her expertise includes benefits design to move towards universal health coverage, arrangements to support efficiency gains and service delivery improvements, innovative payment mechanisms, sustainability strategies, and institutional development. She has worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the UK Department for International Development – now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – and numerous ministries of health, finance, justice, and education.

Sarah J. Shoemaker-Hunt has more than 15 years of experience as a health services researcher and implementation scientist. As an experienced pharmacist, she brings a practice-informed lens to her role conducting mixed-methods studies and evaluations and delivering technical assistance and quality improvement projects for federal health agencies. They include the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Clients also include non-governmental organizations. Sarah is the Abt client account lead for AHRQ.

Dr. Hannah Thomas, a sociologist and geographer, brings over 20 years of experience in qualitative and mixed methods research addressing housing and economic inequality. Her work has ranged across the fields of housing, guaranteed income, workforce development, the racial wealth gap, community development, mortgages, and asset building. Dr. Thomas has worked with a range of clients from federal agencies such as the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Health and Human Services, to cities, states, and non-profits. She brings a participant and implementation orientation towards her research and helps produce methodological solutions in service of the end users of programs and policies.

Meghan Henry is a social science researcher with over 15 years of experience in public policy and program evaluation, specifically in the fields of housing and homelessness and the intersection of homelessness and education. Henry has extensive experience leading evaluations, including large data collection efforts, conducting qualitative data collection, data analysis, and outcome evaluations. As project director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, she has considerable experience synthesizing large amounts of information to make the data accessible and actionable for federal, state, local, and philanthropic clients.

Colleen Grogan Moore has over 30 years of experience implementing community development and housing-based programs in collaboration with state and local governments and nonprofit organizations. She has expertise in providing technical assistance (TA) and training, including to recipients of Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) community development, housing, and homeless program funding. She has experience building strong relationships with state and local program grantees and managers and supporting communities in effectively using resources.

Lisa Simeon is Abt Global’s Chief Operations Officer.  In this role, Simeon is establishing a global operations function to cover all aspects of project management. It will include continuous improvement and scalability of Abt’s standards, processes, and digital platforms for project start-up and closeout, workforce planning, risk management, and quality review to achieve strong financial performance and ensure client satisfaction across the company. She will continue to oversee Human Resources and will add responsibility for global security operations and emergency response to her portfolio.

Laura Blake has more than 20 years of experience in leading scientific programs and research in the environmental science and policy domain. She has deep expertise in surface water quality restoration and protection and has spent her career designing and implementing scientific studies to support efforts to protect human health and aquatic environments. She has significant knowledge of Clean Water Act rules and regulations and has extensive experience supporting federal and state regulatory programs with implementation of and compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

Kelly Batsiokis is a management consultant with 20 years’ experience in the education, health, and human services sectors. She has worked in areas ranging from health promotion and adult education to business case development to monitoring and evaluation of health programs. She has worked for non-government organizations and public and private organizations.Kelly has led or contributed to approximately 30 projects, including a diverse range of reviews, evaluations, and business planning projects spanning local, state, and Commonwealth government organizations. Her project roles included project management, reporting, survey development and analysis, literature reviews, stakeholder and consumer interviews, focus groups, workshops, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data.