Ryan, Katherine E.

(b. 1950, Dixon, Illinois). Ph.D. Educational Psychology, M.Ed. Special Education, B.S. Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Ryan is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before joining the Educational Psychology Department, she was Head of the University of Illinois Internal Evaluation Unit at Urbana-Champaign for 10 years.

Situated at the intersection between theory and practice, the majority of her research on evaluation is devoted to democratizing evaluation practice. In addition to framing conceptual issues, she has used work from two substantive areas in evaluation (family literacy evaluation and the evaluation of teaching) to illustrate how inclusive evaluation approaches, including democratically oriented evaluation, could be used for democratizing evaluation. Her empirical studies have elaborated existing theory in democratically oriented evaluation. Her current work looks at how description and practice may be used to inform evaluation theory.

She has authored or coauthored articles, chapters, and volumes on evaluation, including an issue on democratically oriented evaluation approaches in New Directions in Evaluation (with Lizanne DeStefano). She coedits a book series, Evaluation and Society, with Thomas A. Schwandt. The inaugural volume in the series, Exploring Evaluator Role and Identity, was published in 2003. Ryan serves on the editorial boards of New Directions in Evaluation and the American Journal of Evaluation and has served on the American Evaluation Association Board of Directors.