Catherine Elkins

Catherine Elkins brings more than 25 years of global experience and technical expertise in successfully designing, managing, troubleshooting, and delivering M&E, evaluation, research, and learning projects in cross-cultural and low-resource settings, including peace-precarious situations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. At MiracleFeet, she champions quality methods and strategic design and use of MEAL systems, tools, and evidence building capacities and partnerships to ensure that evidence and collaborative learning informs and expands our success. With field experience across diverse sectors in more than 30 countries, Catherine especially enjoys teaching and training; she often designs and delivers courses and workshops and spent five years teaching evaluation and M&E seminars to mid-career international fellows at Duke University’s Sanford School.

Catherine earned her PhD in Political Science with a focus on political economy methods from Duke, following a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and three years in Mauritania as a State Department Foreign Service Officer. Her extensive track record of senior leadership in research, M&E, and evaluation includes roles as Director of Research and Evaluation (Jhpiego at Johns Hopkins), M&E Director (Jhpiego & RTI on USAID global programs and national projects), and Principal Investigator of numerous complex mixed-method impact evaluations for bilateral, multilateral, and foundation clients.

Catherine is based in Chapel Hill, NC.