Alex Hollister

Alex Hollister is a survey researcher with experience designing and implementing data collection for evaluations across policy areas such as education, workforce development, and human services. His work focuses on survey methodology, instrument design, and field data collection, with an emphasis on improving response rates, ensuring data quality, and supporting rigorous, policy-relevant research.

Hollister is the survey director for the Evaluation Partner for the Inspired Teaching Exceptional Learning (ITEL) initiative. He oversees survey data collection for pilot staff, school leaders, and teachers to assess initiative activities and outcomes across participating schools and districts. The ITEL initiative supports pilot sites in implementing evidence-informed strategies—such as high-quality instructional materials, aligned professional learning, and teacher leadership—to improve educator effectiveness, retention, and student outcomes. On this project, he refines survey instruments and monitors response rates, using targeted outreach strategies to promote strong participation. Through this work, he contributes to building evidence on how different approaches to implementing ITEL’s core components influence educator and student outcomes and to identifying lessons that support broader scale-up.

Hollister served as field data collection lead for the National School Foods Study (including the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study-II and Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program components), a large-scale study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. He led student-level field data collection across more than 400 schools nationwide, overseeing and training a team of more than 60 field staff. On this project, he supervised staff conducting a range of data collection activities, including dietary recalls with students in grades 1–12, student and parent interviews (more than 4,000 completed), cafeteria observations, and the collection of reimbursable meal and point-of-sale data. He led ongoing quality assurance and supported the successful execution of this complex, large-scale study of federal child nutrition programs.

Hollister also served as project director for a multicountry workplace climate survey for Coqual. He collaborated with the client to design and refine the survey instrument to align with study objectives. The study examined workplace experiences across the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, India, and South Africa, with a focus on the experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals. On this project, he partnered with a panel vendor to administer the survey to approximately 2,500 respondents, oversaw survey pre-testing, and led the development of a data collection summary for the client. Through this work, he supported the collection of high-quality, globally comparable data to inform understanding of workplace equity and inclusion

Hollister holds an MA in research and evaluation methods from Boston College.