Salem Valentino, Ph.D.

Salem Valentino is the Director of Evaluation, Impact and Research at the Alliance for Decision Education. As an experienced leader in research and evaluation functions within national youth-serving organizations across nonprofit and corporate sectors, she oversees the use of data-driven insights to inform strategic initiatives and promote an organizational culture of continuous learning.

Salem brings over 20 years of experience conducting applied research on program effectiveness, including out-of-school time initiatives such as youth mentoring programs and experiential education, as well as in K-12 educational settings. Most recently, she served as the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at the Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality at the Forum for Youth Investment, a national nonprofit organization that builds the capacity of public and private agencies to implement quality improvement and performance systems. Before joining the Weikart Center, Salem was the Vice President of Research and Evaluation for FullBloom, a national educational services contract provider, where she reviewed program effectiveness for tens of thousands of students and teachers across 1,100 school district partners. Her previous experience also includes providing oversight of research departments for two national mentoring organizations, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Summer Search.

Salem has her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Science from Colorado State University and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband, kids, and a stinky French bulldog and an enormous cat. She enjoys exploring the outdoors, reading and traveling.