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. She serves as a board member of the International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation (ICCE) group of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), and formerly served as Chair of the board for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG). She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University where she teaches courses on strategy, as well as program design and evaluation of democracy assistance and conflict resolution interventions. 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
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?
Rhetoric or redundant? Making the most of adaptive management