Stafford Louis Hood

Hood was the Sheila M. Miller Professor Emeritus of Education and Founding Director Emeritus of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment in the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During his tenure at Illinois, Hood held faculty appointments as professor of Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Psychology. He also served as the College’s associate dean for research and research education and department head of Curriculum and Instruction. Previous to Illinois, Hood served as professor of psychology in education and associate dean for research in the College of Education at Arizona State University.

Hood had more than three decades of experience as a university professor, researcher, scholar, and practitioner in program evaluation and assessment with a specific focus in culture and cultural context, along with a focus on contributions of African American evaluators during the Pre-Brown v. Board of Education (1930-1954) era. His work significantly influenced the development of culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) as a form of evaluative inquiry and practice by prioritizing the centrality of culture as well as cultural context. Hood received extensive federal and private funding for his work in this area particularly as an external evaluator for federally funded projects focusing on broadening participation in STEM. He served as a program evaluation assessment consultant to the federal government, state governments, local school districts, universities, private foundations, and internationally.

Hood was a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (2016), received the American Evaluation Association’s 2015 Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award, was conferred an honorary appointment as Adjunct Professor in the School of Education Studies at Dublin City University (Dublin, Ireland) in 2014, and was a Fellow of the American Council on Education (2001-2002).