MNA continues to work during these truly unprecedented times. We pray and hope that all of you are staying healthy and sheltered in place. In 2018, the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) contracted with MNA to evaluate their initiative, Artificial Intelligence in Education, funded by the General Motors. MNA conducted surveys of educators who went through the professional learning program that cultivates future AI programmers for educators to support student-driven AI …
News and Updates
Saying Thanks To Our Staff and Contributors on International Women’s Day
This past Sunday was International Women’s Day. At MNA, it's IWD everyday where we celebrate all the women who are STEM and social science researchers, program evaluators, educators, data scientists, data wizards and Moms who are richly contributing to our growing consulting firm. They have made us prouder and stronger every day with their collaboration, realistic ideas, team work, hard work, talent and skills, and more importantly, their passion and compassion. Thank you 🙏🏽 💕💕 We are so …
A White Paper on Retention of URMs in Engineering Education
We are very excited to announce the release of a white paper on Retention of Underrepresented Minorities (URMs) in Engineering Education completed in collaboration with the National Society of Black Engineers (Alexandria, VA). Approximately 50 deans and university administrators convened at the URM Engineering Student Success Symposium in Utah in June 2018. The event, which received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), was organized by the National Society of Black Engineers …
Celebrating a decade of our evaluation journey. Happy Holidays from us to you.
Before taking a break for the holidays, we are taking a moment to celebrate a decade of successful evaluation journey. Thank you 🙏🏽 to my very motivated, hardworking, and talented team of researchers and evaluators who have made this possible. I am nothing without them. In summary, a decade of growth comprised these: Total team members- 1 to 5 plus several regular consultants Number of projects completed-5 to 265 Number of clients served-4 to over 100 Grants funding …
Saying thanks and being grateful to all our HBCU clients
Before we take a short break and head out to be with our families next week for Thanksgiving, we would like to take a moment to thank all our HBCU clients who have placed their deep trust in us by collaborating with us on their student success initiatives. MNA has been working with HBCUs since 2008. Our first project was with the UNCF to conduct a needs assessment of HBCUs across the country. In 2009, MNA completed a College Affordability study for UNCF. Since then, MNA has collaborated with …
Remember our (first) summer intern? She has shared her reflections.
My Summer Internship at MNA By Aneesha Goodala August 29, 2019 I have just completed my first summer internship at MN Associates, Inc. here in Fairfax, VA. MNA is a small, woman-owned research and evaluation firm established in 2004 by Kavita Mittapalli, Ph.D. How it began? I met Kavita at one of the Hindu temple events where we both volunteer over the weekends. We started talking about “my” future. Kavita mentioned that her company is considering opening a summer intern position. She …
The Year of Conferences
As I hang another conference name tag to accompany its buddies on a chair, here are a few reflections, learning, and takeaways from the education conferences I have either attended or presented so far. 1. They are all informational, although, some of them are expensive. 2. I do like to attend sessions that may inform my work. 3. I plan my between-session breaks—one simply cannot attend all the sessions that seem great. 4. I like to interact with as many people as I can including …
Long story short-our NSF grants evaluation work since 2009
July 1 seems like an appropriate day to share our NSF grants research and evaluation story since 2009. Long story short, it's been quite a journey. We have hustled a lot (continue to do so). We have made great connections, built relationships with our clients, sometimes written full grants, plugged in research & evaluation designs and reviewed the project narratives endlessly our in-depth comments. On rare occasions, we've urged the PIs or Co-PIs to re-write the narrative and most of them …
We have a summer intern!
We have our 1st summer intern! Introducing Aneesha Goodala, a sophomore at University of Virginia majoring in Statistics and Public Policy. Aneesha is a youth mentor and an advocate to prevent sexual assaults and harassment on and off campus, a state-varsity level debater, and the current chair of the Indian Students Association at UVA. She will work with us on our NSF-funded STEM grants and advise us on how to be more strategic on social media. Welcoming a second Hoos to MNA. Fun learning and …
We wrote a grant….and it was awarded. All $1.25M of it.
In summer 2018, Dillard University in New Orleans engaged MNA to conduct a grants writing workshop for their STEM and social science faculty. Soon, they commissioned the team to write a National Science Foundation grant proposal for an HBCU-UP Implementation project. MNA along with DU's STEM faculty and the Office of Sponsored Research Programs planned throughout summer and fall to write and submit the full proposal to NSF's HBCU-UP track. On Friday afternoon, we received word that the …