Ms. Jennifer Nyakinya is a development researcher and evidence-to-policy champion with more than 10 years of progressive experience in developing and managing donor-funded projects that lead to social and economic transformative change in communities. She works at the nexus of implementation science, international development and social impact offering technical expertise in assessing and evaluating the impact of projects and programs, knowledge management, dissemination of evidence, skills training, policy outreach and collaborative, learning and adaptation approaches.

She oversees the implementation of NIERA's flagship initiatives - the Demand Driven Research Initiative [DDRI] that adapts innovative evaluation methodologies to respond to clear and specific evidence needs of policymakers; the Collaboration for Inclusive Development Research [CIDR] that aims to systematically document the state of inclusion in global development research while assessing the potential benefits (and costs) of promising inclusion strategies and, the Contextualizing Impact Evaluation Pedagogy in Africa [CIPA] that looks at embedding rigorous training of impact evaluation methods in the curricula of academic and research institutions across Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.

She is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) - Kenya Chapter and ALL-IN Research Network. Jennifer is passionate about the application of Evidence-Informed Decision Making for development impact and mentoring adolescent girls and boys.