STAFF & CONSULTANTS Avar Consulting, Inc. has a team of highly qualified staff and consultants to deliver the core services. All of our key staff and consultants hold a graduate degree and have years of experience in social science research or information technology. Z. Joan Wang, Ph.D., Founder and President. Dr. Wang has 17 years of experience in the areas of survey methodology, attitude-behavior research, and program evaluation in education, public health, and social services. She has worked on more than 50 federal, state, commercial, and international projects. She has special expertise in evaluation design, survey design, sampling design, statistical modeling, analysis, and reporting, psychometric testing, and management of large databases. She is also experienced in focus group study and qualitative analysis. | |
Dr. Wang has served as Project Director and/or Senior Statistician on over 30 survey research and data analysis projects. These include the 2002, 2004, and 2006 Maryland Cancer Screening Surveys (MCS), the National Follow-up Survey of Veterans Health Care Services, of the National Survey Veteran Entrepreneurs, the National Survey of Women’s Sexual Health, the National Survey of Medicare Beneficiaries, the National Survey of Opioid Treatment Program Participants, the Annual Survey of Refugees, the National Survey of Principal Investigators, the National Customer Satisfaction Survey for the National Endowment for Humanities, the Customer Satisfaction Survey of Maryland Mental Health Care Services Recipients, the Maryland Health Insurance Coverage Survey, the Maryland Survey of Small Businesses, the Maryland Lottery Tracking Survey, the North Carolina WIA Customer Service Satisfaction Survey, the Housing Survey of Montgomery County Residents, the School Library Media Center Survey, the FEMA Customer Service Survey, and the Survey of Parents of Baltimore City Public School Students. She has been Project Director and/or Senior Analyst on over a dozen program evaluation projects including the Evaluation of the Education and Training for Employment in Morocco, the Evaluation of Residential Resources in Maryland for Children with Special Needs, the Evaluation of the Maryland Substance Abuse Services Demonstration Project (Title IV Waiver), and the Evaluation of the Maryland Child Support Enforcement Privatization and Demonstration Pilot Programs. She also served as Senior Analyst on a multi-year project to establish the National Evaluation Data and Technical Assistance Center (NEDTAC) for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). She developed the initial design of the CSAT Client-Level Minimum Evaluation Data Set (MEDS) to guide CSAT grantees in their program evaluation effort. She managed the Multi-Project Analysis (MPA) for several CSAT programs and participated in designing the Cross-Site Evaluation for CSAT programs. Dr. Wang was invited as an expert consultant by the Office of Inspector General at the State Department to review and critique the research methodology of one of their media impact projects, assess the validity of the study results, and provide technical advice on the research design and analytical approach. She also served as an expert survey methodologist/statistician on class lawsuits and other litigation cases. Dr. Wang holds a Master’s degree in journalism studies from the University of Wales at Cardiff, U.K. and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Chenggang Zhu, Ph.D., Senior Statistician/Analyst.
Dr. Zhu has over ten years of experience in survey research, market analysis, statistical modeling, data mining, and management of large commercial databases. He has served as Senior Statistician/Analyst on over 20 projects regarding consumer/product marketing research, direct marketing, behavioral marketing, customer satisfaction/insight surveys, survey data analysis, and evaluation of marketing campaigns. He developed models for determining market potentials and store location selection based on geo-demographic and economic data; performed customer segmentation analysis based on their profiles and shopping preference; analyzed point of sales data to identify typical shopping basket items for product development, pricing, and local customer targeting; utilized store inventory and sales data for store optimization analysis in terms of store size, product assortment level, and local demographics; conducted competitiveness analysis to compare and differentiate competitors in the market; analyzed store traffic and sales data to examine store performance/sales growth and related driving factors; implemented projects to evaluate the effectiveness of TV campaign for retail stores in the UK and Japan; performed web traffic and sales analysis for online stores’ project/clients/vendor coordination and management; designed and managed large scale customer survey projects for market intelligence and customer satisfaction/insights research, performed data mining and segmentation analysis to delineate hidden patterns and structure to help develop new sales opportunities and business strategies; worked on credit card campaigns (database marketing) for the finance industry, and evaluated the post-campaign outcomes to help revise scoring and predictive models and improve strategies for the future marketing campaigns. Dr. Zhu is highly proficient in SAS, SPSS, SQL, Oracle, and Teradata. He holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Toledo and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Notre Dame.
Kasey Chen, M.S., Senior Computer Programmer/Systems Analyst.
Ms. Chen has over 15 years of experience in computer programming, database development/ management, and computer systems support. For the last six years, she has worked extensively in website design and hosting, internet accessible database development/management, and web-based survey programming and data manipulation. These included: developing web-based data collection forms for the Trinity Students Reference Cohort Study and designing security measures for its web databases; programming web survey instruments for the Steppin’ Up Youth Intervention Study, managing its web database, and importing ASCII data into SAS datasets; developing a VB application for NICHD to read raw data files in different formats and convert them into a standardized database; developing and implementing routines in analyzing and graphically displaying data for the Center for Population Research using Visual Basic 6.0 and Crystal Report; developing customized data verification and cleaning applications for the Testosterone Patch Study; and designing procedures for the NIH Division of Intramural Research to conduct data migration and create drop tables, sequences, constraints, and foreign keys. Ms. Chen is highly proficient in EZSurvey, EZTool, Dreamweaver, Flash, EditPlus, FrontPage, Oracle Developer/2000, Oracle SQL/PL, Visual Basic 6.0, HTML, 4.0 JavaScript, CGI programming, MS Access 2003, DMBS 7.0, MS-Excel, Crystal Report, SAS, SPSS, and MINITAB. Ms. Chen holds a Master’s degree in Computer Information Science from Strayer University. She is a certified SAS Base programmer and a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).
James A. Swartz, Ph.D., Public Health Specialist (Substance Abuse Treatment & Prevention)
Dr. Swartz has 20 years of experience in mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention research, which has resulted in over 30 peer reviewed publications, eight books and book chapters, over 20 study reports, and numerous presentations. His research topics include screening for serious mental illness in populations with co-occurring substance use disorders; the mediating effects of substance use between serious mental illness and arrest; substance abuse treatment and prevention for women; substance abuse treatment in the criminal justice system; and the impact of welfare policy on substance abuse. Dr. Swartz has served as a reviewer for a number of professional journals such as International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, Contemporary Drug Problems, Substance Use and Misuse, American Journal of Public Health, Women & Criminal Justice, Crime and Delinquency, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. He also served as a grant reviewer for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Substance Abuse Policy Research Program. Dr. Swartz holds a Master’s degree in behavioral research from Loyola University at Chicago, Illinois, and a Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology from Northwestern University Medical School. He is currently an Associate Professor at Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Suzanne Bowler, Ph.D., Health Policy Analyst.
Dr. Bowler has 20 years of experience in designing, conducting, and managing single- and multi-site public health research and evaluation projects for Federal and State Government clients including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) and Treatment (CSAT), SAMHSA, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Specific skills include process and outcome evaluation design, evaluation training, survey research, qualitative and quantitative data collection including site visits and in-person interviewing, focus group facilitation, case study research and analysis, content analysis of primary and secondary data, cross-site data analysis, and data management. She has also written technical reports and publications including Federal monographs and peer-reviewed journal articles, and technical and grant proposals for a variety of Federal initiatives. Dr. Bowler holds an M.A. and Ph.D. both in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Sukari Ivester, Ph.D., Social Epidemiologist.
Trained as a social epidemiologist, Dr. Ivester’s general research interests are in the social and structural determinants of health outcomes, particularly among vulnerable populations. Her research experience includes several evaluations in the areas of Maternal/Child Health and Substance Abuse Prevention funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 1997. Dr. Ivester is a Research Fellow at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley as well as an Adjunct Professor of Medical Sociology at the California State University, East Bay. She is currently leading an evaluation for the State of California of the Mental Health Service Act (MHSA), a $350 Million effort to transform Mental Health Services in the state. In addition to a qualitative analysis of the Proposition 63/Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Evaluation. she is investigating urban health vulnerabilities from a spatial perspective as related to food access and the built environment. She has also been funded by the National Institutes of Health for both pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research. Dr. Sukari Ivester received her BA. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
L. Dee Torre, Ph.D., Education Specialist.
Dr. L. Dee Torre has more than 30 years of experience in education evaluation and policy analysis, especially in early childhood mental health and behavioral issues, special education, parental involvement and education administration. For eight years, she was a master teacher and administrator for students with disabilities ages 1-7 years. She has also worked extensively as an advocate for interagency collaboration regarding students with intense individual needs. She has recently retired as a partner at MGT of America, Inc., a national firm where she conducted statewide and local agency evaluation and planning projects in several states and is now pursuing projects of high interest as an independent consultant. Her MGT projects included: a three-year project to evaluate the Judith P. Hoyer Early Care and Education Enhancement program for the Maryland Department of Education; a seven-year longitudinal study that assisted the New York State Education Department in determining the long-term effect of preschool special education programs and services; the evaluation of California’s Child Care Development Block Grants; a comprehensive study for the Florida Commission on Children with Developmental Delays; the Georgia, and South Carolina Reading Excellence Act Program Evaluations; the evaluations of Reading First funding outcomes for K-3 students in New Jersey and Mississippi. Dr. Torre holds a doctoral degree in Educational Administration and Policy Studies (with a minor in Educational Psychology, Testing, and Measurement) from the State University of New York at Albany. Additionally, she has an M.S. degree in Special Education, with a minor in reading, and is a certified teacher and superintendent.
Alberto F. Cabrera, Ph.D., Education Specialist (Higher Education).
Dr. Alberto F. Cabrera is a full professor at the College of Education, the University of Maryland. He has conducted over 20 years of research in college choice, college students, classroom experiences, minorities in Higher Education, and economics of education. He was also a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Penn State University, SUNY-Albany, and Arizona State University-West campus. Dr. Cabrera has served on the National College Access Network’s board of directors as well as in the editorial boards of the top journals in higher education in the USA and Spain (e.g., Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education and Revista Complutense de Educación). He was a member of the advisory board for Pathways to College Network and currently serves on the GEAR UP Evaluation Council of the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP), a 14-member group charged with a mandate to develop a conceptual research framework and data collection design that will be implemented in GEAR UP programs nationally. His work on classroom practices, the role of finances on college persistence and on determinants of default behavior has received several awards. He was the co-leader of the Diversity Institute, a project funded by NSF seeking to create inclusive teaching practices in STEM fields (http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/cirtl/diversityinstitute). He was co-principal investigator for the IES grant titled Dream Deferred which provided a most comprehensive review of the impact of GEAR UP on awareness and readiness for college among low-income middle school students. Dr. Cabrera holds a Ph. D. in Educational Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison.
Jian Zhu, M.A., Senior Statistical and CATI Programmer.
Mr. Zhu has over ten years of experience in statistical programming, CATI programming, sampling execution, sample management, data analysis, and graphs presentation. He has participated in more than 20 research projects including These include the 2002, 2004, and 2006 Maryland Cancer Screening Surveys (MCS), the National Survey Veteran Entrepreneurs, the National Survey of Medicare Beneficiaries, the Annual Survey of Refugees, the Maryland Health Insurance Coverage Survey, the Maryland Survey of Small Businesses, the Maryland Lottery Tracking Survey, the Housing Survey of Montgomery County Residents, the Evaluation of Residential Resources for Mentally Challenged Children in Maryland, and the Evaluation of the Maryland Child Support Enforcement Privatization and Demonstration Pilot Programs. He is highly proficient in SPSS, SAS, Sawtooth WinCati, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint. Mr. Zhu holds a Master’s degree in educational statistics & evaluation from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Kitty Tang, M.S., Statistical Programmer/Data Analyst.
Ms. Tang has two years of experiences in statistical analysis and data management. She has worked on several research projects, responsible for data cleaning and editing, statistical programming for survey data analyses, graphic presentation of analysis results, and assisting in preparation of study reports. She is proficient in SPSS, Microsoft Excel, Word, Access, Power Point, Minitab, and Photoshop. Ms. Tang holds a Master’s degree in biophysics from the University of Vermont, and is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in science education and educational measurement. Her doctoral research involves a NSF funded project is to develop strategies for improving current science education on federal policy level as well as Maryland state indicator level through investigating teachers’ modifications of curriculum.
--------------------------------------------------------