Michael Quinn Patton, PhD, is an independent consultant who has been conducting program evaluations since the 1970s. Based in Minnesota, he was on the faculty of the University of Minnesota for 18 years and is a former president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA). Dr. Patton is author of more than a dozen books on evaluation. He is a recipient of the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Evaluation Practice Award, the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award, and the Research on Evaluation Award, all from AEA. He has also received the Lester F. Ward Distinguished Contribution to Applied and Clinical Sociology Award from the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology. In 2021, Dr. Patton received the first Transformative Evaluator Award from EvalYouth. He is an active speaker, trainer, and workshop presenter who has conducted applied research and evaluation on a broad range of issues and has worked with organizations and programs at the international, national, state, provincial, and local levels.

Charmagne E. Campbell-Patton, MA, is a second-generation evaluator and twelfth-generation European settler based in Minneapolis. Since the early 2000s, her professional experience spans program design, implementation, and evaluation work across a range of fields, including youth engagement, education, criminal and juvenile justice, and philanthropy. Ms. Campbell-Patton specializes in qualitative research methods and utilization-focused developmental evaluation.