Program book
For the most up-to-date version of the conference program, refer to the online program:
View online program including abstracts
To download the program booklet in PDF format, follow the links below. Note that abstracts are not included and information is accurate as of the time of printing (18.08.26). (Right, or option, click the link for saving options.)
Download aes26 Program book
Keynote presentations
- Emmanuel Jimenez Putting Money Where the Evidence Is: a perspective from international development
- Emily Gates When “What’s Right” is Contested: Ethical Reflexivity in Systemic Change
- Lígia Teixeira From evidence to impact: reclaiming evaluation as a means to an end
- Robyn Ober Being comfortable with discomfort
- Selwyn Button Insight that Delivers: How Good Evaluation Shapes Better Policy and Practice
Presentations
Note: Only the first author has been listed below and not all presenters submitted presentations, or gave permission to publish.
Aboutalebi, Maedeh, Insights from the implementation of Bridget House: Culturally responsive emergency housing
Alaba, Simon, What works for whom? Developmental evaluation of a domestic violence prevention pilot for young men
Antony, Themis, Making Outcomes Stick: A Practical Approach to Collecting Evaluation-Ready data in a Complex Environment
Armstrong, Matthew, Making Space for Economics: Lessons from Comparative Advantage in CGIAR
Atkinson, Gerard, How to evaluate a company
Baghi, Zina, When Worlds Collide: Evaluation at the Intersection of Policy, Curriculum and School Improvement
Bailey, Fergus, Embedding lived experience: strengthening the evaluation of Australia’s Disability Strategy with diverse ways of knowing
Belling, Phillip, Measuring what matters: Culturally responsive evaluation of a statewide ECEC strategy
Boyle, Andrew, Interrogating problem representations in evaluation: Are we solving the right problems?
Bryan, Heather, From scientist to evaluator: Lessons beyond numbers
Calzoni, Carina, Quality evaluation that makes a difference: continuing the conversation
Capuzzo, Giulia, Strengthening engagement with evaluation through the Signs of Success Framework
Carter, Stephanie, When the story turns against the evidence: Navigating media scrutiny as evaluators
Charman, Mandy, What Does It Take to Make Evaluation Work in Real-World Settings?
Chen, Anabelle (pin-ju), Making Space for Boba and Beats: Valuing Grassroots Reality with an Evaluation MVP
Cherry, Kate, A social worker, an astrophysicist and an economist walk into a bar...
Chondur, Ramakrishna, Effects of community water fluoridation on child dental caries in remote Northern Territory, Australia
Clements, Kirstin, Exploring arts-based methods for project evaluation
Cooper, Cath, From Admin to Evidence: Transforming Data Quality Through Culture and Capability
Cross, Dana, Is there room in the C-suite for evaluators?
Cross, Dana, Using partnering principles to navigate power and ethics in evaluation
Cummings, Joanne, Impact beyond food: How Community Pantries function as places of social connection
Cummings, Rick, aes26 Fellows Forum Philanthropy and Evaluation – What Gives?
Dart, Jess, What! No survey? Introducing the Collective Noticing Method (CNM)
Dent, Laura, Making the invisible visible: Aboriginal ways of working in evaluation
Donkers, Martina, Method vs methodology – what’s the difference, and why it matters
Donkers, Martina, Professional isolation in evaluation: AES members’ experiences, and ways to strengthen peer connection and community
Drew, Su-Ann, Across the aisle: building practical skills for navigating ethical pressures in evaluation commissioning
Drew, Su-Ann, When no one has time for evaluation - building learning cultures that survive pressure
Enticott, Zoe, Developmental Evaluation and Value for Investment: A New Pathway for Complex Systems Change
Farmer, Jo van Twest, The ethics of independence – what does ‘independent evaluation’ mean in 2026?
Field, Adrian, Making Space for multiple perspectives: Collaborative design of Value for Investment evaluations
Freeman, Natasha, Doing It Together: rethinking evaluation through culture, context and two-way learning
Gaillard, Estelle, Seeing through their eyes: Photo-Elicitation in Evaluation
Gandy, Kizzy, Process tracing in practice: testing causal claims with mixed evidence
Gavalyugova, Dimitria, Uncertain impacts, real decisions: measuring and communicating causal uncertainty in quantitative evaluations
Gidgup-Lovett, Jessi, Cultural Wisdom and Story Gathering: a participatory reflection session
Gooch, Skye, Walking alongside each other at the pace of trust: how evaluation is only the destination
Green, Louise, Cultural identity as a shield: Measuring the social value of Culture and Kinship
Grimshaw, Robert, Help! The post-it notes have fallen off our logic model and been mixed up!
Guenther, John, Building critical thinking into your writing
Happuhannadige, Jagath, Embedding Ethical Practice in an Evaluation Across Diverse Communities: Lessons from Bangladesh
Harrold, Liesl, What’s your problem? Navigating the impact of problematisation on evaluation
Healey, Matt, Scalability and scaling in and across place: A practical framework for complexity-informed evaluation practice
Henness, Sophie, Monitoring on a shoestring: How reproducible reporting can help make better use of data
Henwood, Caroline, Developmental Evaluation or a Learning Organisation?
Hill, Nicholas, From framework to practice: What does it take to implement shared impact in place-based work?
Hodson, Corinne, Beyond Symbolic Inclusion - Building a Collective Mandate for Indigenous-Led Understanding Measurement Evaluation & Learning (UMEL)
Huber, Dorothea, From Panic to Practice: Putting AI to Work in Evaluation
Jackson, Elisabeth, Challenging power through MEL: What can Australian and international development evaluators learn from each other?
Jennings, Cally, From insight to action: A pragmatic, participatory approach to improving cancer clinical trial systems
Khan, Satib Nisha, Shifting the power: evaluation enabled, embedded and used in local contexts
Lloyd, Delyth, Why you should leave evaluation (and come back!)
Lorains, Jen, Building culturally grounded evaluation, led by First Nations communities
Lugg, Megan, Is the value of evaluation hiding in the shadows?
Lumb, Matt, Making space, valuing place: in and through higher education evaluation
Maher, Emily, Co-design and evaluation as bridges: An adaptive approach to delivering technology for coral reef conservation
Maloney, Jade, Evaluation professionalisation: where to from here?
Moore, Lucie, Making Space for Evaluation: How the UK and Australia Are Improving Evaluation Across Government
Muller, Alice, Practical ways to make space for place in the Evaluation of Regreening
O'donnell, Trina, Ethics for Evaluation
Onsando, Gerald, Ubuntu in Evaluation Practice: Bridging Traditional African Ways of Knowing with Contemporary Program Evaluation
Parker, Louise, Thou shall not: The 10 Commandments for Surveys
Pilbeam, Victoria, Is this going somewhere? Using evaluations to broker organisational change
Prescott, Annabel, Beyond strategic metrics: Centering lived experience in youth program evaluation
Prescott, Annabel, One dataset, many destinations: Building evaluation routes to policy impact and systems change
Radcliffe, Doyen, Making space for influence: Danjoo Koorliny and decolonising evaluation to measure systems change
Raetz, Stuart, Looking upstream and downstream: longitudinal case studies of climate and water resilience
Rasoli, Ali, Evaluating projects using social capital framework in refugee communities in Australia
Rintoul, Duncan, Enshittification: A new category for your next MEL framework?
Rogers, Patricia, Meeting new challenges with better theories of change
Rutherford, Jack, The case for key monitoring questions in simplifying performance frameworks
Savira, Feby, Evaluating ConnectUp: preferences for a social connectivity app among people with disability and carers
Scott-Melton, Fiona, Who really benefits from a program and how? Using personae to enrich logic models
Shaw, Paula, Learnings from the field: why prisoner voice matters in the evaluation of criminogenic programs
Shields, Tennele, Culturally Grounded Evaluation: Innovative Methods from the Champions4Change Workshop
Stoney, John, Finding your space - the psychological, organisational and political dynamics of being a resilient evaluator
Smart, Jessica, What makes place-based evaluation different?
Springer, Sarah Jane, Culturally Governed Evaluation: Reframing First Nations Engagement from Consultation and Co-design to Governance
Stephens, Anne, Staying Grounded in Complexity: Designing an M&E System for Counter-Trafficking in Persons
Stuart, David, Strategy evaluation. Does it have to be this hard?
Taylor-short, Amanda, The Evaluation Pub Test: Simple Questions for Public Value
Thomas, Virginia, Creating impact culture empowered by evaluation: building bridges and blurring boundaries during a merger
Thornton, Danielle, Evaluating ‘value for the public’: Public value as a framework for assessing impact
Togni, Samantha, Two-way learning through evaluation: An innovative Indigenous-led initiative enacting developmental evaluation at the cultural interface
Torava, Elisabeta, Evaluating with the Vanua: A Practical Framework for Relational, Place Based Evaluation in Indigenous Contexts
Torres, Kristian Paolo, Evaluation as a Bridge: The Multiple Hats of MEL in Scaling Government-led Graduation Programmes
Treadgold, Claire, Creating Starlight’s First Social Impact Report: What We Learnt
Tuban, Kristine, Beyond Silos: A Technology–Evaluation Partnership Building a Digital Data Pipeline
Tulloch, Charlie, Evaluation reporting using infographics
Tulloch, Charlie, Introduction to Evidence for New, Emerging and Non-Evaluators
Verrelli, Stefano, Who Shapes What Counts? Collaboration as Ethical Design in Large-Scale Evaluation
Vilisoni, Marilyn, Brokering and interpreting evaluation: An iTaukei experience
Vogelpoel, Nic, Epistemic Justice: victim survivors of child sexual abuse as co-evaluators
Wai, Jill Juliane, From Paper to People: Community-Centred Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for Vanuatu Education & Training Sector
Wade, Catherine, Application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in evaluation within the social services context
Walker, Lucy, When participatory approaches don't go to plan
Weaver, Emma, Navigating Rigor and Responsiveness: Evaluating a First Nations Community-Led Diabetes Prevention Program in Central Australia
Woodward, Alan, Case studies – an overlooked technique in evaluation?