Kathryn Newcomer, PhD, is the director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University. She teaches public and non-profit program evaluation, research design, and applied statistics. She routinely conducts research and training for federal and local government agencies and non-profit organizations on performance measurement and program evaluation, and has designed and conducted evaluations for several US federal agencies and dozens of non-profit organizations. She also was elected as the president elect of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) for 2015-2017.

Newcomer has published five books, Improving Government Performance (1989), The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (1994, 2nd edition 2004), Meeting the Challenges of Performance-Oriented Government (2002), Getting Results: A Guide for Federal Leaders and Managers (2005), Transformational Leadership: Leading Change in Public and Nonprofit Agencies, (June 2008), a volume of New Directions for Public Program Evaluation, Using Performance Measurement to Improve Public and Nonprofit Programs (1997), and numerous articles in journals including the Public Administration Review. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and currently serves on the Comptroller General’s Educators’ Advisory Panel. She served as president of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) for 2006-2007. She has received two Fulbright awards, one for Taiwan (1993) and one for Egypt (2001-2004). She received the Elmer Staats Award for Achievements in Government Accountability, awarded by the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration, May 8, 2008. Newcomer has won two awards for her teaching: in 1996 she was awarded the Peter Vail Excellence in Education Award, and in May 2000 she received the George Washington Award. She has lectured on performance measurement and public program evaluation in Ukraine, Brazil, Egypt, Taiwan, Colombia, Nicaragua, and the UK.

Kathryn Newcomer earned a BS in education and an MA in Political Science from the University of Kansas, and her PhD in political science from the University of Iowa.