Michele Darling, PhD doesn’t just run LPC Consulting Associates, Inc. (LPC), she’s been driving its evolution since 2001. As CEO and Research Director since 2020, she’s the strategic force behind the firm’s reputation for evaluation work that’s both scientifically rigorous and deeply rooted in community impact.
Michele holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Virginia and an MBA in Marketing from St. Mary’s College of California, a combination that makes her equally comfortable crunching predictive analytics and crafting stakeholder strategy. She’s mastered the full spectrum of research methods, from Social Network Analysis and inferential statistics to Grounded Theory and phenomenological research, and she knows when to deploy each one for maximum impact.
Her sweet spot? Tackling complex equity challenges that require both technical precision and cultural humility. Michele has designed and led evaluations for powerhouse funders including SAMHSA, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, California’s Office of Health Equity, California’s Governors Office, Sutter Health, The California Endowment, the Sierra Health Foundation, and multiple county and city departments. She specializes in the hard stuff: multi-site collaborations, cross-cultural programs, and trauma-informed services where the stakes are high, and the solutions need to be community-driven.
Michele excels at translating bureaucratic requirements into culturally competent implementation, connecting disparate stakeholders into cohesive partnerships, and transforming data into insights that actually move the needle. She’s led evaluations of game-changing Collective Impact initiatives addressing racial disparities in criminal justice systems, built statewide evaluation frameworks for tobacco prevention, and created sophisticated program assessments that help organizations improve in real-time.
An American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow (Class XXIII, Mountain Valley Chapter) and longtime member of the American Evaluation Association, Michele brings a leadership style that’s collaborative, nimble, and laser-focused on results. She guides the LPC team to provide evaluation expertise that matches the complexity of your mission and delivers findings you can actually use.
