PhD Candidate – Evaluation
North Carolina State University | Education and Evaluation

Micaha Dean Hughes (she/her) was born and raised in Kentucky. She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a bachelor’s degree in integrated strategic communications and a master’s in STEM education in 2015 and 2021, respectively. In 2021, Micaha moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to pursue a PhD in Teacher Education and Learning Sciences (Educational Psychology). Since reaching candidacy, she relocated home to Lexington, Kentucky, where she is conducting research for her dissertation and supporting program evaluation on three NSF-supported grants through her work in the Innovation Studies Lab and the Friday Institute.

Journey to the Hub

I have been part of the CHEER team since 2022 as a graduate student researcher under the direction of Dr. Lindsey McGowen, Director of the Innovation Studies Lab at NC State, and CHEER’s external evaluator. Our team conducts applied research with and program evaluation for team science-based research initiatives. Our projects typically focus on large, cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional research centers that involve collaborators from academia, industry, government, and other stakeholder groups, all working together to address grand challenges of scientific and societal importance. Dr. McGowen is great at helping her students find program evaluation opportunities that align well with our research interests, and so she has helped me find my own niche within our evaluation work for the Hub.

I enjoy working in groups that provide educational outreach and engagement opportunities to emerging scholars and the community, and I appreciate when the team is intentional about relationship building, community partnership, and broader impacts beyond the lab. Part of my role within the Hub is collecting and analyzing data related to participant engagement and seeing how students are making community-engaged connections. I love telling stories with our data to consistently humanize the work. In the Hub, I get a front-row seat to understanding how genuine connection with the people we’re trying to impact can shape the mind and work of a researcher – how the work can go from numbers to a story. 

CHEER Roles and Responsibilities

Because I’m a part of the external evaluation team, I do not have a capstone project or thesis that is directly related to the Hub’s scientific research agenda. However, I have a very unique perspective on the CHEER. As a doctoral candidate working in the Hub, I am a trainee, but as part of the external evaluation team, I also get to see across all the various aspects of the grant. I get a bird’s-eye view of the work that has given me a real appreciation for the importance of an intentional evaluation plan that is embedded and consistently referenced. 

Evaluation is more than surveys and interviews that tell us what has already happened. Through advance planning of strategic evaluation methods that are aligned with the objectives and outcomes for the Hub’s work, evaluation becomes a key vehicle for forward momentum rather than simply being an accountability tool. We use our evaluation data to explain what’s going well and where there is room for innovation and improvement. To work in a group like the Hub that is so open to continuous improvement allows for theory- and data-informed change to occur for everyone. That is the root of what we do.

Within that, my research explores how students come to see themselves as meaningful contributors to their learning communities, and how educators can nurture that growth. Given this, part of my role on the external evaluation team is to gather information on how best to support students within the Hub. This occurs in myriad ways, from collecting data using existing tools to discussing how to modify our evaluation suite to more authentically capture the student experience within the Hub.

For example,  I have really enjoyed the opportunity to engage with the CHEER summer scholars at East Carolina University. For the last two years, I have met with the summer scholars multiple times throughout the program, getting to know them, their interests, and their experiences during the weeks they’re in the program.

While my work is “data collection” on paper, I have gained a lot from talking with the scholars and hearing what drew them to participate and how they see the world of community-engaged research. A reminder here that I support program evaluation, yes, but I’m also a student researcher just like they are – and so we have been able to generate meaningful conversation with shared understanding while also supporting positive change for the summer scholars program to make it better and better. Engaging with them (the students and Dr. Millea) and their work, ideas, and energy is always a bright spot in my summer. 

Working with the CHEER Team

Working with the CHEER team has been a highly collaborative and supportive experience. Because evaluation work traverses all role types within the Hub, we work with faculty, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as the Hub’s community and practitioner partners – each of whom brings diverse expertise and perspectives. We are in this dynamic space where we get to take in all of the amazing work going on within the Hub from a higher point of view, which makes our discussions really creative.

As a graduate student researcher, I work most closely with members of the external evaluation team and the Hub’s ExCom in collaboration with Dr. McGowen to coordinate data collection, synthesize findings, and translate them into actionable recommendations. The Hub’s evaluation suite is very comprehensive, but I support pieces of it using data collection and analysis, such as summative surveys after events and programs, interviews with student participants, observations of annual meeting presentations, etc. That is then turned into actionable reporting for team leadership. One recent, concrete example of this is the Trainee Needs Assessment that we sent to all CHEER grad students and postdocs. In this simple survey, we asked what kind of professional development training would best support their personal and professional development.

As I said above, the evaluation team’s analysis of the data we collect is just one piece of the puzzle. Through informed interpretation and discussion of the results, we support innovation and change for the Hub by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the CHEER ecosystem. For me personally, I enjoy centering the student experience, ensuring that representation of student perspectives is included in the objective-setting for the Hub through strategic evaluation methods.

Hub Highlights

One of my favorite parts of working with CHEER has been seeing how research, evaluation, and community engagement come together to create real-world impact. A highlight for me was attending the 2025 annual meeting at ECU, where I had the chance to hear from a wide range of voices within and beyond the Hub. I especially enjoyed listening to the community partners, whose stories and insights were a powerful reminder of the tangible difference CHEER researchers are making and how our data storytelling supports that broader mission.

Working with the CHEER Hub has taught me a lot about collaboration and community-focused research. I’ve seen how sharing data with deliberate attention to the work’s objectives and targeted outcomes can help people feel more connected and motivated, especially those who are not directly connected to the Hub but who feel its impact, like our community partners and residents in our case study areas.

The story, derived from the data, is the whole point – how can we tell it in a way that supports innovation? That means that stakeholders – administrators, students, community partners, researchers – need to be able to understand the findings as relevant to their work, access them at the right time, and see how the information can connect to not just their outcomes and experiences, but their decision-making.

My role is to support the translation of evaluation outcomes into clear, actionable insights, yes. But it is also to make the opportunity for delivering change so compelling that people want to take part in meeting the team’s goals through collaboration. That’s something I want to carry forward: using evaluation as a tool to strengthen teams and support collaborative and community-engaged work.

Looking Forward

In the Hub, I look forward to continuing to connect with other students and postdocs. I also enjoy connecting with mentors who model excellent, strategic work and hope to do more of it. Outside the Hub, I am writing my dissertation. In a nutshell, my dissertation highlights the collaborative problem-solving skills (e.g., conflict management, shared leadership, group cohesion, etc.) that we expect teens to have by the time they leave high school, and how we can help them obtain these social competencies. My overall goal as a researcher is to help students work better together in collaborative learning environments, which research demonstrates can improve their personal well-being as well as support the development of the broader learning community.

In terms of my career plans, I’m keeping an open mind about where my work could lead. I see myself teaching pre-service teachers and other educators, but I also have a serious passion for being on the ground with students, being in their spaces, and leveraging the amazing skills they already possess to help them grow and meet their goals.

Part of why I returned to my home state of Kentucky during my candidacy is that I have such a heart for building the community that raised me, and I hope to support strategic educational development here in the state in the future. I know that the opportunity to work with CHEER has solidified my intersecting interests in community engagement, creative solutions for positive social change, and the importance of collaboration for problem-solving. I hope to apply the skills I have learned to better serve students through intentional research and program design.

Spotlight Trivia

I love to read (for fun!). I particularly enjoy sci-fi and fantasy books, which are genres I have gained interest in during graduate school. My top read this year was Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I am anxiously awaiting the release of the third book in the trilogy. I have a goal of reading 36 books per year, but I don’t think I’ll make it this year! When the academic reading starts to pile up, this goal can be quite challenging to reach, and the dissertation phase has kept me busy.

I also love to run, especially on Sunday mornings, and I hope to run a half-marathon next year in a new state (taking suggestions). I’m also a mom of two daughters, Charlotte (9) and Auden (6), with whom I love to read and play board games.