Vera Michalchik

Vera Michalchik leads EPLI’s research on philanthropy and the design of programs, consultations, and materials for donors, advisors, and others wanting to advance insight and practice in giving for social good. Vera has spent her career in the non-profit and public sectors, applying a research-plus-practice lens to processes, relationships, and outcomes. Her efforts have succeeded in helping manage expectations between local organizations and global funders, adapt effective programs to new cultural contexts, document successes and lessons learned in evaluation studies, and build new approaches through applied research. She brings to her role extensive experience in social science research, putting relevant findings to use in her previous positions at SRI International, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics, and Stanford’s Center for Teaching and Learning. She also built a library system on a small island in Micronesia while collecting data there for her dissertation on knowledge management across social settings. She holds a PhD from Stanford, EdM from Harvard, and BA from UC Berkeley—her studies all focused on learning, media, and the shaping of cultural norms.