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PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Advisory Board Member (Chair)
Research Scientist
Advisory Board Member
Advisory Board Member
Executive Director
Advisory Board Member
Research Manager
RESEARCH SCIENTISTS
Research Associate
Research Associate
Research Associate
A LITTLE ABOUT US
Mashi Rahmani, MBA, Ph.D.
Mashi Rahmani, MBA, Ph.D. is the CEO and founder of MMC, Inc, a leading HRO (Human Resources Outsourcing) firm. MMC is a $300 million dollar company, serving over a thousand clients, both nationally and globally.
Before developing MMC, Mr. Rahmani worked for nearly ten years as a Senior Program Administrator at NASA, negotiating contracts between the government and private sectors, bringing in key individuals and resources. Building on that experience, he was able to move forward with his own successful endeavor. Mashi and his company, MMC, have been recognized on numerous occasions by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a “Top 15 Largest Employer” and “Top 20 Largest in Human Resources Services” in the seventh largest economy in the world.
Mashi earned his B.S. Degree in Air Transportation Management from the University of Houston/CL. He then attended the UCLA Anderson School to receive his MDE, before earning his Global MBA at TRIUM (NYU Stern, London School of Economics and HEC-Paris). He later earned his PhD from ISM (International School of Management).
Mr. Rahmani sits on the Board of Trustees of Claremont Graduate University, previously served on the Board of Visitors of the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, and currently the UCLA Human Resources Roundtable. For 35 years, he has also served on the Board of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i Faith of Los Angeles.
Paul Zak, Ph.D.
Dr. Paul J. Zak is a Professor of economics, psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University and is ranked in the top 0.3% of most cited scientists with over 170 published papers and more than 19,000 citations to his research. Paul’s two decades of research have taken him from the Pentagon to Fortune 50 boardrooms to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. Along the way he help start a number of interdisciplinary fields including neuroeconomics, neuromanagement, and neuromarketing. He has written three general audience books and is a regular TED speaker. His newest book, Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and Source of Happiness, will be released September 13, 2022.
Paul is also a four time tech entrepreneur; his current company, Immersion Neuroscience, is a software platform that allows anyone to measure what the brain loves in real-time to improve outcomes in entertainment, education and training, advertising and live events. He frequently appears in the media in such places as Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, Fox & Friends, ABC Evening News, and his work has been reported in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, The Economist, Scientific American, Fast Company, Forbes, and various podcasts.
Mohannad S. Malas
Mohannad S. Malas is a principal and co-founder of IRA Capital. His responsibilities include raising equity for IRA’s private funds and syndicated offerings, while overseeing the firm’s overall investment strategy.
Malas also serves on the board of trustees of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Foundation and is a founding board member of UCI Beall Applied Innovation. He is a lifetime founding member for the Mission Hospital Foundation.
Malas received his bachelor of science in civil engineering from the University of Manitoba-Winnipeg, Canada, and attended the YPO Executive Program at Harvard.
For his humanitarian and philanthropic work in December 2021 Mr. Malas received an honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters from California State University CSUSB.
Mr. Malas has executive produced over ten films including award wining films such as “The Game Changers”, “1948: Creation and Catastrophe”, “ American East”, “Americanish”, and the Oscar nominated and BAFTA Winning short film “The Present”.
Mr. Malas joined the Claremont Graduate University Board of Trustees in 2009.
Stewart I. Donaldson, Ph.D.
Jennifer Villalobos, M.A.
Jennifer Villalobos, M.A. is an Adjunct Professor and doctoral student in Evaluation and Positive Organizational Psychology at Claremont Graduate University (CGU). She has a Master’s degree in Positive Organizational Psychology and Evaluation from CGU and Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and History from USC. Jennifer has over 20 years of experience working in research, evaluation, and organizational development. She recently completed a grant funded collaboration with the Community Engagement Center at Pitzer College on Educating Socially Responsive Evaluators, focused on designing and implementing evaluation through a social justice lens. She also is working on a large-scale research collaboration with Camber Outdoors on increasing the DEI profile of over fifty companies in the outdoors industry. As an evaluator and organizational consultant, she has focused her work on prioritizing capacity building through a social justice lens as a critical step towards her goal of creating social betterment within organizations.
Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D.
Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D. is an evaluation consultant and strategist with almost 25 years of experience at the local, state, and federal government levels, and with philanthropic organizations. She is currently a Principal of Global Equity, Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion at DC Metropolitan-based Abt Associates, and a partner with Strategic Learning Partners for Innovation (SLP4i) in Washington, DC. Her expertise is in evaluation, strategic planning, mixed methods, applied social psychology, culturally responsive, and equity-centered evaluation approaches, and cultural contexts. Dr. Bledsoe’s expertise has been widely recognized both domestically and internationally she has served as a keynote speaker and consultant for organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development, the United States Office of Management and Budget, Seattle Washington Evaluators Association, the Visitor Studies Association, the Eastern Evaluation Research Society, the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association, the New Zealand Education Review Office and New Zealand’s Pasifika Futures Health Organization. She is also the author of chapters, articles, and blogs focusing on evaluation practice, and mixed methodology and evaluation, as well as cultural responsiveness and equity in evaluation, social psychology, and other topics. Dr. Bledsoe served on the AEA Board and helped to write the Association’s Public Statement on Cultural Competence.
Yilong Wang
Yilong Wang is a Ph.D. student in Economics at Claremont Graduate University specializing in the field of Behavioral Economics – Moral Decision-Making.
Robert Klitgaard, Ph.D.
Robert Klitgaard, Ph.D. is a university professor at CGU, where he served as president from 2005-2009. Before coming to CGU, he was dean and Ford Distinguished Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, America’s leading PhD program in policy analysis.
He has also served as Li Ka-shing Distinguished Chair Professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore; professor of economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Lester Crown Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management; and associate professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has also served on the faculty of the World Economic Forum.
He has worked and done research in more than 40 countries around the world, working with governments, civil society organizations, and international institutions.
Klitgaard’s 12 books include Choosing Elites, listed in The Harvard Guide to Influential Books, and Tropical Gangsters, named one of The New York Times’s “Books of the Century.”
Minji Cho
Minji Cho is currently a doctoral student in the Evaluation and Applied Research Methods program at Claremont Graduate University. She has MSc in International Development from the University of Bristol and experiences in various social service sectors, including community-based organizations, corporate social responsibilities, and international non-governmental organizations. Her current research interests include the application of the Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Indigenous evaluation in the international development sector to decolonize evaluation practices and promote the use of Indigenous methodologies in evaluation.
He has also served as Li Ka-shing Distinguished Chair Professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore; professor of economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Lester Crown Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management; and associate professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has also served on the faculty of the World Economic Forum.
He has worked and done research in more than 40 countries around the world, working with governments, civil society organizations, and international institutions.
Klitgaard’s 12 books include Choosing Elites, listed in The Harvard Guide to Influential Books, and Tropical Gangsters, named one of The New York Times’s “Books of the Century.”