Irina Cheban

Irina Cheban has over 10 years of experience implementing mixed-methods program evaluations in Western and Southern Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, as well as the United States.

Currently, Cheban leads data collection and analysis tasks for evaluations of the land management system in Cabo Verde, vocational education in the republic of Georgia, improved irrigation infrastructure and access to agricultural finance in Moldova, and a school education reform program in Guatemala. All of these projects are financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

Since joining Mathematica in 2012, Cheban has also supported evaluations of water, sanitation, and health projects in Mozambique and Cabo Verde, youth assessments in Mauritania and 10 other countries prioritized by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a natural resource management project in Malawi, and the impact of reading interventions across the Latin America and Caribbean region. Cheban also served as a deputy project director for the Women’s Health Network project, on which she oversaw data collection administered in English and 10 other languages, conducted interviews and focus groups, and led data analysis and reporting to assess program effects on participants’ behavior and screening. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the project funded community-based organizations to identify vulnerable populations in their communities and hold educational workshops to raise cancer awareness and promote screening.

Cheban is a native speaker of Romanian and Russian and is fluent in Portuguese. She holds a master’s degree in food policy and applied nutrition from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in economics with the highest distinction from the University of Massachusetts Boston.