New Initiatives

Center of Excellence in Language, Culture, and Diversity | Healthy Aging Collaborative

Center of Excellence in Language, Culture, and Diversity

KEY STAFF

Our staff is multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multilingual and has national and international experience. Corporatewide, we are fluent in more than 20 languages in addition to English, and we have conducted focus groups and collected data in 17 languages. We have worked in every State and Territory and in more than 100 countries, including those in Eastern Europe, Africa, Southern Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Key management staff for the JBS Center of Excellence in Language, Culture, and Diversity include Senior Fellows, Jorge M. Nakamoto, Ph.D., Roger Rasnake, Ph.D., and Elena Cohen, M.Ed., M.S.W., and Managing Director, Carmen Sum, M.B.A. They will coordinate Center projects and draw on internal corporate resources and our national and international network of experts to fulfill customer requirements.

Jorge M. Nakamoto , with a doctorate in international education, is a nationally recognized expert in Latino population research. He has extensive experience in designing and pilot testing bilingual survey instruments and in tailoring these instruments to the cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic context of the respondents. From his extensive field experience, Dr. Nakamoto creates effective approaches for reaching resistant populations; he then trains field reviewers in these approaches to ensure culturally appropriate data gathering. In addition to his domestic research experience, Dr. Nakamoto has worked as an evaluator on U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs, conducting interviews and trainings in both the United States and South America . Most recently, he worked on a project to evaluate the efforts of the government of Peru in assisting workers displaced by industrial privatization. He has authored numerous articles and reports on minorities and intergroup relations, including Translating Survey Questionnaires: Lessons Learned (Jossey-Bass); Hispanic Response to Census Enumeration Forms and Procedures (U.S. Bureau of the Census); Key Issues for Low-Income Latino Preteens in Santa Clara County: Preliminary Qualitative Research With Adult Professionals (commissioned by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health; and Hispanic Response to Census Enumeration Forms and Procedures for the U.S. Bureau of the Census (Aguirre International).

Roger Rasnake , whose doctorate is in anthropology and Latin American Studies, is an internationally known researcher and evaluator who has worked in more than 40 countries worldwide. He has worked on training evaluations for USAID in Bolivia , Peru , Ecuador , El Salvador , Nicaragua , Guatemala , and Honduras . He has overseen and managed evaluations in the Dominican Republic , the Eastern Caribbean , Panama , and Colombia . In addition, Dr. Rasnake manages projects related to design and evaluation of education, workforce, and training interventions. He has experience managing complex social research studies and program evaluations. Recently his work has expanded into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union , supporting U.S. development efforts to foster improved social safety-net mechanisms relating to labor force preparation and technical education. He is also working on teacher training and curriculum issues in Latin America . His recent publications include A Reflective Study of Teacher Professional Development in the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (USAID, 2004) and Emerging Practices in Community-Based Services for Vulnerable Groups: A Study of Social Services Delivery Systems in Europe and Eurasia (USAID, 2006).

Elena Cohen has a master’s degree in bilingual education and child development from Harvard University and a master’s degree in social work from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She has worked in Guatemala and Mexico and with different groups of Latino families in many States and Puerto Rico. She is currently consulting with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the American Humane Association, Family Communications, Inc. (producers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood), and the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice on refugee and immigrant issues. Ms. Cohen also directs the Safe Start Center, a resource center providing support to a national initiative funded by the Department of Justice to support children exposed to violence and their families. Ms. Cohen has provided training, technical assistance, and consultation and developed curricula, videos, guidelines, and many resources in Spanish and English for Head Start, mental health, child care, public health, and cultural competency programs. In addition to participating in several public awareness campaigns for families with limited-English skills and/or low-literacy skills, Ms. Cohen was a member of the advisory group that developed resource guides for Latino families in different systems (early care and education, child welfare, and others). Her published work includes Framework for Culturally Competent Decisionmaking in Child Welfare (2003) (www.cwla.org) and Rationale for Cultural Competence in Health Care (a policy brief for the Washington, D.C., National Center for Cultural Competence).

Carmen G. Sum has a master’s degree in business administration with a focus on international business and works extensively on a multitude of Federal and State evaluation projects focusing on minority special populations research. Examples include collaborating with Young & Rubicam, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the American Cancer Society’s California Division on social marketing and advertising campaign plans for ethnic minority populations; directing qualitative research projects focused on low-literate Latinos for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Fannie Mae Foundation; and delivering technical assistance and training for projects such as the Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers’ Survey and AmeriCorps Evaluation for the Corporation for National Service. Ms. Sum has an excellent understanding of the special techniques needed to successfully conduct qualitative and quantitative research evaluations involving traditionally hard-to-survey and culturally diverse populations. Ms. Sum’s publications include Key Issues for Low-Income Latino Preteens in Santa Clara County: Preliminary Qualitative Research With Adult Professionals (commissioned by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health); Summary Report of Limited-English Proficient Latino and Vietnamese Mothers and Access to Federally Subsidized Child Care. (commissioned to U.S. Government Accountability Office); and The Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS): A Demographic and Employment Profile of Perishable Crop Farm Workers. For U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Office of Program Economics.

SELECTED CLIENTS

	Fannie Mae Foundation
	Inter-American Development Bank
	U.S. Agency for International Development
	U.S. Bureau of the Census
	U.S. Department of Education
	U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
	National Institute on Aging Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Administration on Children, Youth and Families
	U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development, Office of Native American Programs
	U.S. Department of Labor
	U.S. Department of State
	U.S. Government Accountability Office
	U.S. Treasury Department