The team at DVP-PRAXIS LTD believes in the ability of research and evaluation to make organizations and systems more equitable and effective. It is important to us that our work is purposeful; we want to use our skills to contribute to positive change.

Collectively, we leverage over 40 years of experience, expertise in various methodological approaches, and personal knowledge of postsecondary and workforce systems to produce meaningful research. Our team takes a collaborative approach to our work, ensuring our projects benefit from the breadth and diversity of our individual skills and strengths.

Our Principles

We approach evaluation with a commitment to principles that have grown out of an intentional and ongoing effort to understand how equity and power shape evaluation contexts.

These principles were developed collaboratively, with contributions and support from current staff, recent colleagues (Janelle Clay, Drew Curtis, and Jessa Valentine), and the Mirror Group and Change Matrix.

As we work with current and prospective clients, we welcome questions and reflections on how we developed these guiding principles, how they inform our praxis, and how we see equity and power shaping our work together.

✓ Evaluate Systems

We are committed to examining and documenting the experiences and outcomes of diverse populations through our data collection and analysis. We work to elevate the perspectives of those with less power in the evaluation setting.

✓ Contextualize Data

We are committed to learning about and reporting on systemic explanations for observed patterns in the data we’ve collected and analyzed.

✓ Amplify Diverse Voices

We are committed to understanding the cultural context and power dynamics around programs and initiatives to thoughtfully design evaluations and analyze data.

✓ Engage Communities

We are committed to engaging initiative leaders and beneficiaries as meaningful contributors by using participatory and inclusive processes.

Our Staff

“Being a small team allows us to be thoughtful and responsive to client’s needs. Our priority is building a relationship that allows for transparency and honesty.”

— Derek V. Price, Principal and Founder

  • Derek founded DVP-PRAXIS LTD in 2005 to provide formative and summative evaluation services, along with strategic facilitation and advising, to document implementation and measure impact across postsecondary education and training systems.

    He provides honest and candid feedback to clients, facilitates reflective inquiry, and designs and leads evaluations with an eye toward informing equitable change. His leadership recognizes that longstanding structural inequities affect students’ choices and opportunities and can inhibit organizational change. He listens with a keen ear to clients and partners to identify strategies and approaches that further institutional transformation and systems change and is committed to ongoing learning and improvement around equitable practices.

    Over his 25 year career, Dr. Price has been a college professor, grantmaker, and consultant; published a book, Borrowing Inequality: Race, Class and Student Loans (Lynne Rienner, 2004); and authored or co-authored more than a half dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 25 monographs. While director of higher education research at Lumina Foundation (2001-2004), he helped launch the national initiative, Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count.

  • Sarah is a Managing Director with DVP-PRAXIS LTD. Since 2009, her professional experience has included working with a diverse cross-section of postsecondary institutions, including selective four-year universities, community colleges, postsecondary consortia, and a state agency. Her work has centered around program design, execution, and evaluation in areas of holistic and basic needs student supports, guided pathways, and credit for prior learning. She previously worked at Central Carolina Community College as the Project Activity Director for the Carolina Works-US Department of Education First in the World validation grant and served as the Associate Director for the Student Success Center at the North Carolina Community College System Office. Sarah’s work is driven by her own experience as a student from a rural community who was fortunate to encounter caring faculty and staff who helped her succeed in college. Sarah’s work aims to create these supportive environments systematically for all students by designing evaluations that provide data-informed and useable findings.

  • Julia joined DVP-PRAXIS LTD as a Senior Researcher in 2021 to advance the company’s qualitative projects focusing on postsecondary education, workforce development, and employment. Prior to joining DVP-PRAXIS, Julia worked and trained as a qualitative researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. She brings expertise in using critical qualitative approaches to examine how stakeholders approach the work of expanding access and advancing equity in postsecondary spaces. As a former student affairs practitioner, she is driven to understand and amplify the experiences of those most impacted by systemic inequity within institutions, with a particular interest in issues related to racial equity and disability justice.

  • Amber joined DVP-PRAXIS LTD as a Researcher in 2023 to assist with the company’s quantitative projects. Amber received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Arizona, where she trained as a mixed methods social science researcher and applied linguist. In these roles, she has experience using experimental data to evaluate inclusive and equitable teaching practices and develop insights into how to improve learning outcomes in language learning classrooms. As an applied linguist, Amber brings a unique perspective regarding the relationship between inclusive and equitable research and language diversity. She is passionately dedicated to contributing to actionable research aimed at improving postsecondary success and workforce attainment, especially for historically and systemically underserved and marginalized populations. She is particularly interested in issues related to racial equity, linguistic discrimination, and gender or sexual identity.