Evelyn Aissa

Deputy Director Partnership for the Future of Learning

Evelyn is a long time partner and Steering Committee member (2018-2020), and joined the Partnership team as a Senior Consultant in 2020 and in July 2022 as Deputy Director. Prior to joining the Partnership team, she served as the first executive director of Reaching Higher New Hampshire, NH’s leading nonpartisan public education policy resource. Her leadership was central to building Reaching Higher NH into the statewide leader that it is today, supporting the expansion of NH’s innovative assessment program, PACE; bringing to fruition the organization’s pivotal role in the work of Manchester Proud – a groundbreaking and lasting community movement for Manchester public schools; launching a multi-year research initiative, The Whole Picture of Public Education, that continues to influence how state advocates and lawmakers think about equitable education funding, and; advancing a forward-looking vision of what is possible and just for NH’s students and communities.

Evelyn has over twenty years of experience in the intersecting fields of education, development, and health policy research and strategy, as well as in nonprofit governance and management. Previously, she was the Advocacy Director for a NH-based nonprofit advancing health care reform, building a statewide network of over 375,000 members to successfully advance vital policy changes, including the expansion of Medicaid. She has held a senior role at a Washington, DC-based political and economic consulting firm, worked in the Middle East as a political analyst and journalist, and worked in research, exploring how the construct of resilience applies to human, institutional, and ecological systems, with the goal of understanding how to better promote human security. Her resilience research can be found in a number of publications, including Global Perspectives on War, Gender, and Health (Ashgate, 2010).

Evelyn serves on the board of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and is Co-Chair of the board of Court Appointed Special Advocates – New Hampshire. She has previously held a range of gubernatorial appointments as well as advisory appointments by the NH Education, Insurance, and Health and Human Services Departments, and has served on numerous nonprofit boards. She holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts University. Prior to attending Fletcher, Evelyn graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Skidmore College.