Dr. Joe Thomas, Vice President of Evaluation and Research, Junior Achievement USA

My professional career was launched when I joined FedEx as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist where I led the Testing and Training Technologies department. In that position I was responsible for developing and implementing mathematical models to evaluate employee competencies across most of the company's divisions. For more than 25 years, I have continued to develop, implement, and evaluate technology-based learning and assessment solutions for non-profits, educational programs and workplace training. I'm a former Chief Learning Officer for an innovative eLearning company whose clients ranged from Fortune 100 companies to state and federal government agencies. I'm also a former member of management at NIKE, Inc. where I worked domestically and internationally to implement change management and training solutions in Asia, Europe and the US.

I earned a B.A. and M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University at Fullerton, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the Johns Hopkins University. Because of my passion for teaching, I've maintained a number of adjunct teaching positions at various universities during my professional career (e.g., Johns Hopkins, Towson State University, California State University Fullerton, and Christian Brothers University.). To stay current in my profession, I hold memberships in several professional organizations (e.g., American Psychological Association, American Statistical Association, American Educational Research Association, American Evaluation Association), and am often invited to speak at forums or conferences on the topics of new, innovative eLearning approaches, assessment methodologies, and the practice and science of program evaluation.