Elizabeth (Bessa) Whitmore is Professor Emerita, School of Social Work at Carleton University. In the mid-1980s, she earned her PhD in program evaluation (from
Cornell University) and has been teaching and practicing participatory approaches to research and evaluation ever since. Among her publications are Understanding and Practicing Participatory Evaluation (1998), that included the chapter entitled “Framing participatory evaluation”, co-authored with Brad Cousins. Her most recent publication, “Arguments for a common set of principles for collaborative inquiry in evaluation”, (AJE, March 2013) is co-authored with Brad Cousins and Lyn Shulha. Bessa was a member of the AEA Task Force on Cultural Competence.