GRC Attendees Share Takeaways from the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference

Submitted by James.Sims on January 8, 2026 - 1:45 pm
Laura Milazzo and Emelie Bailey stand in front of the Kansas City Conference center building with the AEA Evaluation 2025 billboard overhead.

GRC Attendees Share Takeaways from the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference

Laura Milazzo and Emelie Bailey stand in front of the Kansas City Conference center building with the AEA Evaluation 2025 billboard overhead.

- The GRC's Laura Milazzo and Emelie Bailey (left to right) stand in front of the Kansas City, Missouri Convention Center as they attend the American Evaluation Association's Evaluation 2025 conference in November. -

In late 2025, GRC staff members Laura Milazzo, MA, Senior Project Manager and Emelie Bailey, MA, Project Director attended the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference in Kansas City Missouri. The conference theme, Engaging Community, Sharing Leadership, emphasized how evaluators can strengthen fairness, collaboration, and shared responsibility in their work.

Sessions highlighted emerging uses of artificial intelligence in evaluation, practical strategies to improve training and technical assistance, approaches for organizing evaluation methods, and ways to design data systems that meet the needs of end users. Throughout the week, Laura and Emelie engaged with community-centered practices and built upon foundational evaluation frameworks through workshops and discussions.

Insights from the conference will inform GRC’s ongoing evaluation practices, partner engagement, and technical assistance efforts.

Laura's Evaluation 2025 name badge with five multicolored ribbons showing which presentations she attended (Behavioral Health, Mixed Methods Evaluation, Disabilities and Vulnerable Populations, Health Evaluation, and I Love Eval).

- Laura's Evaluation 2025 name badge and attendance ribbons. -