Van Allison, Executive Director, Spark: a centre for social research innovation
Allison Van
Executive Director, Spark: a centre for social research innovation
Spark: a centre for social research innovation
Staff
Master of Public Policy Program
Area(s) of Interest:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Arts-based Research Methods
- Art, Media, and Mediation
- Asymmetric Information
- Big Data
- Buddhism
- Child Welfare
- Climate, Water & Sustainability
- Communications
- Community Based Research
- Computational Economics
- Econometrics
- Fisheries
- Global Political Economy
- Health Care
- Health Economics
- Natural Resources
- Policy
- Poverty
- Qualitative Methods
- Research Ethics
- Resource and Environmental Economics
Biography
Allison Van is the Executive Director of Spark: a centre for social research innovation at McMaster University. She specializes in mixed-methods complex systems analysis, community/academic partnerships, and the translation of research into social change. Her career has traversed sectors and disciplines, including extensive work in agricultural and rural development, poverty, child welfare and juvenile justice, social entrepreneurship, and medical innovation. Uniting these experiences was a common approach to applied research and experimentation, allowing Allison to transform radically different systems and organizations. Previously, she was the Associate Director of Evaluation at the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at University of North Carolina. Prior to that she worked at Winrock International, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the National Rural Funders Collaborative.
Allison Van is currently building the Spark into an international model of innovation in social science research support.