Voices from the J-PAL North America network
Researcher Voices
“The intellectual feedback on my J-PAL North America research proposal to study the impact of physician race on patient outcomes was superb and improved the quality of my work. The academic leadership is willing to take risks on innovative projects and the funding stream is very flexible.”
— Marcella Alsan, Co-Chair of the US Health Care Delivery Initiative,
Harvard University
“There are so many different, often minor, things that need to get done to make the RCT happen, and J-PAL helped ensure that everything stayed on track.”
— Adam Sacarny, Columbia University
“I had worked on other RCTs in the past, but not with a healthcare intervention or one that needed as much outside management. The [RMS] team was really useful in helping think through the very minute details of our research protocol, and kept the project going on a weekly regular basis.""
— Alicia Sasser Modestino, Northeastern University
Partner Voices
“Our evaluation with J-PAL North America has been a profound learning experience for our organization as we undertook the first randomized study of our flagship intervention…We couldn’t have pulled our evaluation off without a strong, collaborative, and supportive partner on the research side.”
Aaron Truchil,
Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers
“It is important for government agencies to have the most rigorous, defensible, and independent evaluation possible of their policies and programs. Working with J-PAL North America helped us satisfy all of these objectives.”
Christian Soura,
formerly with the South Carolina Hospital Association
“We've raised a one hundred million dollars in eight years from government sources and philanthropy. We've served 30,000 kids. None of that would have happened without having the foundation that was forged by what now is eight randomized control trials. We don't get anywhere without that.”
Alan Safran,
Saga Education
Evaluation Incubator Partners
“We support nonprofits that are experts in service delivery, collaboration, and innovation [to support the unhoused population]. When we couple that with rigorous evaluations, we’ll be able to have a blueprint for innovative service delivery that will better serve the needs of our community members experiencing homelessness.”
Adrian Schurr,
Google.org
“J-PAL North America has been a north star for Philadelphia…we’ll continue using the tools that we’ve learned from J-PAL to evaluate more city programs.”
Anjali Chainani,
FORMERLY WITH THE City of Philadelphia
“The Evaluation Incubator gave us a chance to learn more about evidence-based policymaking and how to implement and evaluate a randomized controlled trial”
Weston Merrick,
Minnesota Office of Management and Budget
“Most of us run on pretty thin budgets, particularly in public safety. Sometimes it's difficult to grow, even when we want to. Having the availability that J-PAl North America provided a window to do this work that we probably otherwise could not have done for our community.”
Bob Horton,
formerly Jackson County Fire District
Training partners
“After attending J-PAL’s [Evaluating Social Programs] course, our work on [an] evaluation progressed rapidly due to the fluency and comfort we gained on the concept and application of randomized evaluations.”
Massey Whorly,
FORMERLY WITH THE Virginia Department of Social Services
“J-PAL North America helped participants understand evaluation methods and generate an understanding of when and how to use randomized evaluation. We plan to draw on these concepts to implement and evaluate evidence-based programs and policies that we can sustain over time.”
Joy Bonaguro & Jason Lally,
CalData
“Not only did J-PAL teach concepts at the Performance Management Academy (A five-day training course on evidence-based policy) but we use the J-PAL concepts around theory of change, generalizability, and evidence to policy as the basis for our teachings. And we have many examples of folks who have gone away and used the teachings in their work.”