Alysson Akiko Oakley
Vice President, Learning, Evidence & Impact
Alysson Akiko Oakley, PhD, is the Vice President of Learning, Evidence and Impact (LEAP) at Pact. She is an experienced practitioner in the fields of international development, governance and democracy assistance, and specializes in improving program strategy and demonstrating impact. Dr. Oakley is co-editor of the International Advances in Evaluation section of the American Journal of Evaluation and is incoming Board Chair of the International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation group of the American Evaluation Association. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University where she teaches courses on program design and evaluation of democracy assistance and conflict resolution interventions. Prior to joining Pact, she was Associate Editor for the Cambridge University Press Southeast Asia “Elements” series, a principal Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom House’s flagship publication Freedom in the World, authoring multiple Southeast Asia country reports from 2009 to 2017, Senior Advisor at the International Republican Institute, and Program Director at the U.S.-Indonesia Society. She has consulted for governmental, think tank and private sector organizations on topics ranging from political risk to methodology. Dr. Oakley earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University.

Areas of Expertise
Research, evaluation, learning
Strategy
Capacity building
Democracy
Governance
Empowerment, participatory approaches
Complexity-responsive methods and systems approaches
PUBLICATIONS & BLOGS
-
PeaceCon 2024: Embracing complexity to advance social cohesion
-
More than a catchphrase? Locally led development and the future of aid
-
Redefining the future through Indigenous concepts from the Amazon
-
Devastating vs democratizing data: How a global indicator can engage communities and be locally led
-
Are agency-level global indicators enlightening or constricting?