Preskill, Hallie

(b. 1953, New York City). Ph.D. Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Certificate of Advanced Study, Evaluation and Policy Research, University of Vermont; M.S. Elementary and Special Education, Long Island University; B.A. Spanish, California State University at Fullerton.

Since 1994, Preskill has been Professor in the College of Education, University of New Mexico. Previously, she was Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas and worked for private industry in the areas of training and evaluation. Her primary contributions to the field of evaluation focus on linking evaluative inquiry to organizational learning. She has written extensively on how evaluation can be a catalyst for individual, team, and organizational learning. Emphasizing the importance of context, she argues that the evaluation process can help organizations grow and learn from their experiences and that evaluation should be integrated with the daily work practices of organization members. Robert Stake, Ernest House, Michael Patton, Carol Weiss, and Marvin Alkin have influenced her philosophy of evaluation. Chris Argyris, Donald Schon, Edgar Schein, Victoria Marsick, Karen Watkins, and David Cooperrider have influenced her understanding of human resource development and organizational learning.

She is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and evaluation reports, as well as several books, including Evaluation Strategies for Communicating and Reporting: Enhancing Learning in Organizations (with R. T. Torres and M. E. Piontek, 1996), Evaluative Inquiry for Learning in Organizations (with R. T. Torres, 1999; winner of the 1999 Book of the Year Award, Academy of Human Resource Development), and Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance and Change (with D. Russ-Eft, 2001). [Page 327]She is on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Evaluation, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Evaluation Review, Human Resource Development International, and the book series Organizational Change, Performance, and Learning. She has served on numerous committees for the American Evaluation Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Academy of Human Resource Development, and the American Society for Training and Development. She was the recipient of the 2002 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Outstanding Professional Practice from the American Evaluation Association.