“I truly loved working with Dr. Aisha because she held the evaluation process through a liberatory lens, which means that the flow and collaboration were deeply intentional, embodied, and emergent. This allowed us to be able to change directions when needed without major disruption, to have open communication about what was working and what wasn’t, and the spaciousness to be innovative with how the evaluation was conducted.

What I also loved about working with Dr. Aisha was her dedication to ensuring that consent was always centered in the evaluation process, making it so those who were informing the evaluation were a priority instead of an afterthought.”

— Toi Smith (Founder, Loving Black Single Mothers)

“The Evaluation Team at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless deeply valued our time with Aisha. She was intentional in her approach to supporting our team to enhance our efforts at qualitative methods and centering the perspective of our clients, taking the time to talk with each team member about our experience and knowledge set in order to tailor our training to where we were starting from and what our goals are.

She consistently modeled curiosity and created an environment in which everyone had an equal voice at the table. She was creative in her approach to training and flexible in how to support our needs, while also maintaining her own boundaries within the coaching relationship.

In addition to her own knowledge and experience, Aisha shared a wealth of additional resources for our team to continue our learning. As well as giving our team valuable evaluation skills and insights, Aisha gave us the skills to care for ourselves and each other while navigating complex systems. The conversations we had together have shaped our work moving forward and continue to inspire us to learn more.”

— Beth Gregory (Director of Evaluation, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless)

“During our two-year partnership, I came to truly admire Dr. Rios for her professional qualitative expertise, and for her passionate commitment to non-profit and public-sector missions.

Our work together on a federal evaluation consulting project focused on the grassroots impact of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). As our evaluation lead, the outstanding interview protocols she created, the critical data analysis she conducted, and the superb report she authored were the very core and substance of the project. Dr. Rios gained the trust and respect of her CDC funder clients in the Prevention Evaluation Branch (who were strong task monitors every step of the way), and she gained the trust of the dozens of health department and community-based executives she interviewed to obtain their perspectives on NHAS.

Having worked many years as a CDC contractor myself, and as a member of the HIV community, I can tell you that was no easy feat! In spite of the decades difference in our ages and experience, Dr. Rios was in every respect a peer. She taught me the phrase, “cultural humility.” I use it to this day in my presentations. I was humbled by how gentle she was in teaching me something so important and so transformative.

I have worked with many evaluators and many evaluation firms over the years. If given the chance, I would be thrilled to engage or employ Dr. Aisha Rios. I urge you to do so.”

— Jesse Milan, Jr., JD (President & CEO, AIDS United)

“When Rise Above decided to take a hard look at its justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion practices and policies, it turned to Aisha and Kai. Together, they facilitated a process that simultaneously provided knowledgeable and thoughtful guidance while empowering Rise Above to choose the path that fit best with the organization’s mission and stakeholder interests. We would highly recommend both Aisha and Kai for any organization considering a similar journey and analysis.”

— Gina Tincher (Chair of the Board, Rise Above Colorado) & Kent MacLennan (Executive Director, Rise Above Colorado)

“My experiences in working with Aisha in planning and executing a state-wide process evaluation for the Aging Mastery Program have been wonderful. Aisha brings her expertise and insights to develop a thoughtful evaluation plan. The reports she prepares are crisp, clear, and useful. Also, Aisha’s professionalism and dedication to work is refreshing and truly inspiring. I’m happy to recommend the services of Coactive Change.”

— Hayoung Kye (Senior Program Manager, Project Management and Evaluation Aging Mastery Program, National Council on Aging)

“More than a year ago, we launched a learning / unlearning relationship with Dr. Rios to test and explore assumptions that underpin our learning and evaluation practice. Our hope was Dr Rios would help us to reflect and play with re-patterning dominant ways of working to be more equitable and aligned with our values.

Time with Dr Rios has been honest, generative, pragmatic and joyous. Our conversations have ranged from getting direct feedback on key components of our work and working through decisions we faced, to digging into learning topics ranging from organizational transformation, to power analysis, to cultivating cultures of care.

Without a doubt, our time with Dr Rios is helping us better align who we want to be and what we actually do. We continue to iterate and adapt, and could not be more thankful to be on this journey with her.”

— Jessica Kiessel (Senior Director of Learning & Impact, Omidyar Network)

“How can I sum up my thoughts about Dr. Aisha Rios? Professional, knowledgeable, passionate, data-driven, empathetic, detail-oriented, and easy to talk to and work with.

I worked with Dr. Rios for 2 1/2 years across several government consulting evaluation projects. As a senior evaluation lead on my team, she was integral to the strategies and efforts in shaping and writing proposals, designing and implementing evaluation plans, collaborating with clients, conducting complex data analysis (complete with analytical memos), reporting and disseminating information and actionable recommendations, and mentoring junior level public health staff.

Dr. Rios was often the go-to monitoring and evaluation resource for the team and the company. I had not had the pleasure of working with an anthropology-trained evaluation specialist before, and it is now my preference. The lens with which Dr. Rios views and executes her work incorporates a broad understanding of the many different aspects of the human experience.

Dr. Rios’ style and methods have been adopted by several of our federal clients for their continued projects. I look forward to working with her again soon on more impactful projects. I encourage you to do the same!”

— Erika Copeland, PhD, MPH, MBA

(Director of Corporate Strategy, Growth, and Operations, Williams Consulting LLC)

“I had the pleasure of working with Aisha and receiving her insightful, high quality evaluation reports for a critical two year project that helped design, strengthen and implement workflow strategies within our small, but highly specialized mental health clinic for older adults and their caregivers.

Aisha’s reflective, participatory and non-biased analytical expertise was a significant component of her evaluation process. It unequivocally aided our efforts in altering the standard of practice for delivering capacity assessments to vulnerable high-risk seniors to be more aligned with the national standard, thus better serving local agencies and clients in need.

Our work with Aisha helped to broaden our visibility and strengthen our multi-disciplined community partnerships with social service,, legal service, and other healthcare providers. Given this evaluator’s technical skills and interest in health equity and other social justice issues, I would not hesitate to enlist the services of Coactive Change.”

— Lori Rossi (Project Director, University of Colorado Colorado Springs [UCCS] Aging Center)

“Working with Aisha Rios was a very rewarding experience. She assisted our team in evaluating complex national level HIV prevention initiatives and their impact on various public health organizations.

She played an instrumental role in ensuring that the evaluation project we were planning on encompassed health equity aspects, and that key voices from the field were heard. As an anthropologist,, she was very reflective during the field interviews and the data analysis process, which reflected in the success of the project. Our team is now using a similar approach for other evaluation studies.”

— Ekaterine Shapatava (Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)