Tessa Tinkler

Dr. Tessa Tinkler serves as the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation for The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego. With a background in education and psychology, she has twenty years of experience conducting research and evaluation in nonprofit and educational organizations and has experience working collaboratively with many different stakeholders to assess a wide diversity of programs. In her role at The Nonprofit Institute, she leads the contracted evaluation projects and ongoing research studies on San Diego’s nonprofit sector. Tessa received her PhD in Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006. Her recent work has included community-wide needs assessments across a broad range of topics, supporting partnerships between nonprofits and foundations around community impact, research on early childhood STEM education initiatives, and the economic impact of the nonprofit sector.