Nisaa Kirtman

Nisaa is a social psychologist with twenty years of experience designing and conducting research studies in educational settings, communities, and the public health sector. She uses a Culturally-Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (CREE) framework when approaching both research and evaluation. She studied social cognition; historically underrepresented communities of color in STEM; educational inequities; health inequities; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) climate assessments at institutions, organizations, or within post-secondary educational departments; stereotypes and stereotype threat; and identity. She has managed both long and short-term evaluations and has managed several multi-year professional development projects at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and out-of-school programming for historically underrepresented youth and girls of color, such as Black Girls Code. These projects are often funded by Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Programs (U.S. Department of Education), the National Science Foundation, or private foundations such as Google. Nisaa is currently a member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), American Psychological Association (APA), the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), and the Expanding the Bench Advancing Culturally Responsive Evaluation (ACE) Network. She also serves as Co-Chair for AEA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Work Group. Nisaa has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Scripps College (the women’s college) in Claremont, California, and a Master’s degree in Social Psychology from San Francisco State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Northcentral University.