Kelly Gannon is currently the Monitoring and Evaluation Program Manager in Kenya for Nuru International. Working with her local team in Kuria West, they collaborate with the Agriculture, Healthcare, Community Economic Development, Education and Leadership programs to evaluate and monitor projects through rigorous and tested methods of survey design, data collection, data entry and analysis, and unbiased reporting. Much of her position’s goal is to not only report program progress and impact but to ultimately make her job obsolete so that the Kenyan team can take complete ownership of the program.
“This position has given me a great opportunity to apply the research skills, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and project development that I learned from my academic experience at GPIA. Part of what drew me to Nuru International was that many of their approaches are based on concepts learned and discussed in many of the 
classes I took at GPIA, like Comparative Development Experience. Additionally coursework in classes such as Epidemics & International Responses and Human Rights & Poverty allowed me to not only increase my research and analytical skills but also helped me to focus on topics I was particularly interested in pursuing post graduation.
More specifically though, it was the hands on experience I gained through the IFP and Practicum that directly prepared me for my current work. I conducted field research in Buenos Aires with the 2010 IFP on the topics of urban development, environmental health and public health services. The coursework preparation in Evaluating Development Impact and the field research greatly honed my project design skills and pushed me to be proactive and organized in order to gain access to information and key stakeholders in government and local organizations.
For my Practicum I co-authored a detailed study, “Visualizing Rights in Liberia,” for the Centre for Economic and Social Rights. Through analyzing socio-economic data, policy efforts and budget reports, I expanded my knowledge of and experience in applying quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in evaluating social and economic rights fulfillment. This coupled with working closely with Professor Sakiko Fukuda-Parr as my advisor for the Practicum and also as her research assistant really helped strengthen my knowledge in quantitative analysis methods for human rights and the intersection of human rights and economic development. These skills and knowledge have been essential in a monitoring and evaluation position for an organization dedicated to sustainable development and capacity building.
I look forward to continuing to apply more of what I learned from GPIA, the faculty, and the program’s approach to development studies as I continue with my career.”
