Latinidad: Cultural Heritage, History, and Evaluation

Dr. Aponte-Soto will describe the relevance of “Latinidad” for conducting

culturally relevant and community-engaged research and evaluation. Specifically, she will

deconstruct terminology used to define Latinos as well as the importance of attending to

cultural identity, history, and context for Latinx communities.

About the presenter:

Lisa Aponte-Soto, PhD, MHA is the President/CEO and founder of Tanoma Consulting LLC, a nonprofit

firm providing transformative research, evaluation, and training services to advance health,

education, and workforce equity. She specializes in asset-based community-driven models using

mix methods research and evaluation approaches. She facilitates capacity building workshops on

culturally responsive practices, leadership, strategic visioning, and quality assurance for diverse

organizations. Dr. Aponte-Soto is also an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University where she

currently teaches research methods. She has nearly 20 publications and over 50 presentations

including workshops and invited lectures on applying of culturally responsive methodology and

practices for working with underserved, under-resourced, and vulnerable populations.

Dr. Aponte-Soto currently serves as a Board member-at-large for the American Evaluation

Association (AEA). She is also an alumna of the AEA Graduate Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program

and a founding member and past chair of the AEA Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LaRED)

Topical Interest Group.

Dr. Aponte-Soto earned her PhD in Behavioral Science from the Division of Community Health

Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and holds a Master of

Health Administration and Policy from Governors State University.