Tiffany Berry is a full research professor in the Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences. She is a core faculty member in two concentrations: Positive Developmental Psychology and Evaluation and Applied Research Methods. She is also the Associate Director of the Claremont Evaluation Center and the Director of Student Affairs and Strategic Planning for The Evaluators’ Institute.
Berry received her PhD from Claremont Graduate University in Developmental Psychology & Evaluation, specializing in the development of intrinsic motivation among youth who participate in after-school programs. This research led to her working as an Evaluation Consultant for one of the nation’s largest after-school programs, Los Angeles’s Better Educated Students for Tomorrow (LA’s BEST).
This experience highlighted the importance of using evaluation to collaborate authentically with front-line practitioners as well as the need to connect developmental science to real-world practice. Not only do programs have the potential to become stronger through evaluation, but developmental theory can be strengthened by contextualizing program strategies and measuring youth development in context.
Berry has since established multi-year partnerships with several programs, including after-school, college readiness, social-emotional learning, early childhood education, youth sports, teacher professional development, and educational curricula.
Dr. Berry has also published more than 75 technical evaluation reports, published peer-reviewed articles in leading evaluation journals (American Journal of Evaluation and New Directions for Evaluation) and youth development journals (Journal of Early Adolescence), and presented her findings at scientific and practitioner conferences. Additionally, since 2014, Berry has been a member of the Evaluation and Research Advisory Committee (ERAC) with the After-school Division of the California Department of Education.