Laurie Stevahn, PhD

Biography

Laurie Stevahn has over 35 years of experience as an educator, researcher, and evaluator. She joined the faculty in the College of Education at Seattle University in 2002 where she currently serves as a professor in the Educational Leadership doctoral program. She teaches a variety of courses on leadership for effective organizations, social justice in professional practice, and research/evaluation methods for applied social inquiry. Laurie also supervises Thematic Dissertations in Leadership Practice (TDiLP)—a unique aspect of the Educational Leadership doctorate at Seattle University through which teams of doctoral students partner with community organizations to conduct studies aimed at supporting social justice initiatives that disrupt oppression and champion equity, diversity, and inclusion.   

Laurie earned her doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota, her master’s in curriculum and instruction from Seattle Pacific University, and her bachelor’s in political science with a Washington State secondary education teaching certificate from Pacific Lutheran University. Her research focuses on various aspects of constructive cooperation, competition, and conflict resolution grounded by social interdependence theory and on identifying and validating essential competencies for program evaluators across diverse contexts. She also conducts inquiry on the effectiveness of team-based approaches to community-based research (CBR) and cooperative dissertations in graduate education programs. Her publications on these topics appear in an array of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, American Journal of Evaluation, New Directions for Evaluation, Journal of Social Psychology, Mediation Quarterly, Child Development, Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Research in Education, Journal of Education for Teaching, International Journal of Doctoral Studies, and others. Books include two published by Sage entitled Interactive Evaluation Practice: Mastering the Interpersonal Dynamics of Program Evaluation and Needs Assessment: Phase III Taking Action for Change.  

Laurie is past chair of two American Educational Research Association (AERA) Special Interest Groups (SIG)—SIG Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice and SIG Conflict Resolution and Violence Prevention. She currently serves on the executive board of directors of the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education (IASCE) and has served the American Evaluation Association (AEA) on a variety of committees over the years, including the AEA Evaluator Competencies Task Force. In addition to her work with organizations across the United States, Laurie’s international work includes presentations in Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and South Africa.