Dr. Karla C. Lewis began her career as a Social Worker with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services and thus has knowledge of working with vulnerable populations through working in that capacity. Before coming to SERVE in 2003, she held a 2-year Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Social Organization of Schools to extend her dissertation research on parent and family involvement. She has been with SERVE Center for over fifteen years and served as a Project Director with SERVE’s Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast (2006 – 2011).  In this role, she supervised the work of the SERVE Center State Liaisons (senior staff assigned to each southeast state) and worked collaboratively with them to understand and respond to state educational agency (SEA) needs. Currently, her work focuses on evaluations of Early College High School projects, student support services, and STEM initiatives. She also co-directs the Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program (NESP).  She has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.