We all need more small delights, and I love getting to hear about people’s little passions, as you may have deduced from my recent post here.

One of my passions is yet another quirky podcast that is so full of joy and silliness that I wish someone, anyone?! I know would listen to it and talk about it with me…it’s Dr. Gameshow, hosted by the comedian Jo Firestone. Listeners write in with games they design, and on each show, callers (adults and sometimes their kids) play 3 of these games. A recent game was “Do You Know What My Roommate is Talking About?” Two listeners designed it based on conversations with their roommate who forgets words and uses phrases like “centipede car (it takes the children)” to mean other things (in this case, school bus!). Callers get a word or phrase from the roommate and guess what they were talking about.

I relate to this game as a lifelong “translator.” Growing up, my grandmother lived on the first floor of our house, and my mother and I lived on the top two floors. They did not get along well, and I spent a lot of time up and down the stairs, carrying and translating messages between them. Was this healthy for a kid? Big NOPE. But sometimes difficult experiences and the ways we learn to cope lead to some skills we can use in positive ways. (I also seemed to love interpreting the communications of my 2 year-old neighbor, when I was 5 years old, so maybe this was just something innate within me too). Anyway, across my career, I’ve been fascinated by and drawn to ways to improve science communication (check out the Alda Center for some cool stuff about this) and in particular how to translate research and evaluation for use among parents, programs, and policy makers (among others). This led me to my incredible Applied Child Development doctoral program at Tufts. Through an internship and part-time job at The Children’s Trust across 5 years of my program, I got to translate research and evaluation needs and findings between state legislators, academics, parent educators, and nonprofit leaders. I learned so much from everyone there.

For the past 16 years, I’ve been immersed in the world of AmeriCorps, first as an internal evaluator and then as a consultant to programs and state commissions across the country. I’ve been called a unicorn by one program officer because I know evaluation and I know AmeriCorps, and I can speak both languages. I’m still always learning, and I don’t want to be the rare unicorn!

If you know an evaluator who wants to become more familiar with AmeriCorps, I’m offering this orientation webinar on April 5 and would love for you to share this.

What are your small passions these days?