Abby El-Shafei (she/her), MA, is a Researcher, Program Evaluator, and Capacity Builder with nearly a decade of experience leveraging community-centered research and evaluation as a social justice tool to advocate for the needs and interests of historically marginalized communities. She partners with mission-driven organizations, nonprofits, and foundations, and across the United States and West Asia and North Africa to design and implement mixed-methods research and evaluation that support organizations understand and communicate their impact so that they are better able serve their constituents, communities and causes.

Her work spans continents and issue areas including economic justice, gender justice, reproductive rights, HIV justice, and LGBTQIA+ rights and through it all, she has been steadfast in her conviction that research is most powerful when it belongs to the communities it is meant to serve. Her approach centers the voices and lived experiences of historically marginalized communities, ensuring that research processes are not only methodologically rigorous but also inclusive, ethical, and responsive to context. Most recently, she has contributed to the Ms. Foundation for Women’s third iteration of the Pocket Change report and Pregnancy Justice’s groundbreaking report, The Rise of Pregnancy Criminalization. Across her career, she has brought this commitment to research as a consultant, independent contractor, fellow, and volunteer, reflecting a career-long commitment to social justice research in all its forms irrespective of title.

She works with organizations as an ally to understand their research needs and help develop their evaluation acumen so that they are better prepared to thoughtfully answer questions about the impact of their programs and services. With extensive experience in research design, data collection, analysis, and reporting, Abby is committed to equipping teams to conduct and feel confident in their own research and evaluation processes. Her approach to unlocking organizational potential for evaluations emphasizes knowledge sharing and application to ensure that organizations understand the what, why and how of program evaluation. She facilitates collaborative processes that move beyond extractive research toward shared learning and continuous improvement.

As an educator and coach, she thrives in empowering organizations with the tools and skills necessary to assess their own programs and related work in service of their clients. In her most recent role, serving as the Director of Training, Capacity Building & Technical Assistance at The Strength in Numbers Project, she designed and led evaluation capacity-building initiatives for 40+ New York State nonprofits and community-based organizations. Through workshops, cohorts, and tailored technical support, she helped organizations move beyond compliance-driven evaluation toward practices grounded in learning, reflection, and strategic action.

She received her Master of Arts in International Human Rights Law at the American University in Cairo and her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at Stony Brook University.