Ms. Michelle Gyles-McDonnough (Jamaica) is the Director, Sustainable
Development Unit, Executive Office of the Secretary-General at the United Nations, New York.
Throughout her career, Ms. Gyles-McDonnough has practiced privately as a lawyer; served as advisor to the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States and has deep development experience within UNDP, including as Chief of UNDP's sub-regional facility for the Caribbean, UN Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the OECS, Resident Coordinator for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam and was recently appointed as Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Regional Director Designate for Asia and the Pacific. She is currently Director of the Sustainable Development Unit in the Executive office of the Secretary-General.
Ms. Gyles-McDonnough holds a law degree from Columbia University School of Law, with honours in international and foreign law, a Masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and also a Diploma in Executive Education from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania
 

Michael Woolcock is Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, where he has worked since 1998. For twelve years he has also been a (part-time) Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. His current research focuses on strategies for enhancing state capability for implementation, on crafting more effective interaction between informal and formal justice systems, and on using mixed methods to assess the effectiveness of 'complex' development interventions. In addition to more than 75 journal articles and book chapters, he is the co-author or co-editor of ten books, including Contesting Development: Participatory Projects and Local Conflict Dynamics in Indonesia (with Patrick Barron and Rachael Diprose; Yale University Press 2011), which was a co-recipient of the 2012 best book prize by the American Sociological Association's section on international development, and, most recently, Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (with Matt Andrews and Lant Pritchett; Oxford University Press 2017). He has recently returned from 18 months in Malaysia, where he helped establish the World Bank’s first Global Knowledge and Research Hub. As an Australian national, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland, and has an MA and PhD in sociology from Brown University

Jos Vaessen (Ph.D. Maastricht University) is adviser on evaluation methods at the Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank Group. Since 1998 he has been involved in evaluation research activities, first as an academic and consultant to bilateral and multilateral development organizations and from 2011 to 2015 as an evaluation manager at UNESCO. Jos firmly believes in a strong link between research and practice. His ongoing involvement in some evaluation-related research and teaching activities as honorary lecturer at Maastricht University contributes to the necessary cross-fertilization between these two domains. Jos has been author of several internationally peer-reviewed publications, including three books. He regularly serves on reference groups of evaluations for different institutions and is a member of the Board of the European Evaluation Society.

Susanne has some 30 years of work experience with seven different UN entities combining operational and management experience with hands-on evaluation, result-based management and strategic planning expertise. Following work in consulting and programme management during her earlier career, she has worked at senior leadership level in the evaluation functions of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), 1996-1999, the World Food Programme (WFP), 1999-2002 and the UN Office for Humanitarian Coordination (UNOCHA), 2002-2007. Between 2009 and 2014 she was the executive secretary of the Joint Inspection Unit, a subsidiary body to the United Nations General Assembly with system-wide mandate for evaluation, inspection and investigations.
In July 2014 Susanne took up her current position as the director of the internal oversight service of UNESCO in Paris. In this function she directs the internal audit, evaluation and investigation functions of UNESCO and is a member of UNESCO's Senior Management Team.

In 2011, Susanne was nominated by the Secretary-General to be a member of the Interim Coordination Mechanism for system-wide evaluation responsible for developing and negotiating a new UN policy on independent system-wide evaluation. She also served as an Advisory Board member of the mid-term review on the Hyogo Framework for Action (2011-12) and as a peer panelist or peer advisor on the evaluation functions/policies of FAO (2004, 2016), WFP (2007, 2013/14), IFAD (2015), the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services (2012) and UNRWA (2015). Susanne holds a number of professional credentials such as memberships in the American and European Evaluation Associations (AEA, EEA), member of the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) since 1996, serving on its then Executive Committee for two years, an Advisory Board member of the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEVAL) since 2013. She is the holder of an M.Sc. in Geography from the University of South Carolina (USA), obtained in 1986 and two bachelor-level certificates in Geography (with minors in Political Science and Sociology) and American Studies obtained in 1983 and 1984 from the Justus-Liebig Universitaet, Giessen (Germany). Her Master's Thesis evaluated the social, economic and evironmental impact of mass tourism on CanCun, Mexico.

Dr. Jyotsna Puri (Jo) is currently the Head of the Independent Evaluation Unit of the Green Climate Fund. She is also adjunct associate professor at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, New York. Dr. Puri’s areas of work include policy impact analysis on poverty reduction, environment, agriculture, health and climate change, etc. She has more than 22 years of experience in policy research and development evaluation at several organizations including the World Bank, Columbia University and the UN. Also, she has led evaluation-related work for UNDP, UNICEF, GEF and the MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Puri also has extensive policy experience and provides advice on evidence-based climate change and environmental policy, evidence-based advocacy for behaviour change, community-based engagements for improving health, and methods for evaluating humanitarian action. Her expertise is using mixed methods that use rigorous quantitative methods informed by high quality qualitative approaches. Dr. Puri’s academic qualifications include a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Resource Economics and a Masters in Development Economics.