Dr. Shanesha Brooks-Tatum is the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Creative Research Solutions , an award-winning research and evaluation firm with global reach. Dr. Shanesha Brooks-Tatum strategizes with organizations to improve their programmatic design, program implementation, grantmaking strategies, and community partnerships. In her role as Founder and CEO of the Life Balance and Wellness Institute, Dr. Brooks-Tatum partners with an extensive network of organizations working to address disparities in educational funding opportunities and health policy issues for women and girls of color. Her results-driven approach measures and documents her clients’ impact while maximizing their available resources enabling them to tap into new markets. Certified Results-Based Accountability (RBA) facilitator and trainer, Dr. Brooks-Tatum uses RBA’s framework to help nonprofits and foundations collaborate with the communities they serve to evaluate their programs’ outcomes.

Dr. Brooks-Tatum has been fortunate to receive several prestigious national and international fellowships and has served as Arts of Citizenship Fellow; the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) Fellow; National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellow; and U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Fellow (Brazil). Dr. Brooks-Tatum has won national and international awards for her work, including a recent National Association for Women-Owned Businesses Shining Star Award (2017). She received an international honor, the 2016 Rising Star Award from the International Journal of Ethnic College Health for her work with the Life Balance and Wellness Institute in addressing health disparities among youth and college students of color.

She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (American Studies, social science and humanities concentrations), and her Bachelor’s Degree from UC Berkeley (Interdisciplinary Studies and English), summa cum laude. Currently serving as Program Co-Chair for the American Evaluation Association’s Nonprofits and Foundations Topical Interest Group (AEA NPFTIG), Dr. Brooks-Tatum has held visiting professor and visiting scholar appointments at several colleges and universities. An invited radio and television guest and featured writer at news and media outlets, Dr. Brooks-Tatum is the author of several print and media publications in the fields of education and community research, evaluation, and self-care.