Rakesh Mohan – grandfather of two awesome boys – has been the director of the Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE) since 2002. As an independent and nonpartisan agency of the Idaho State Legislature, OPE is committed to promoting confidence and accountability in state government through evaluation.

Under his direction, the office has received many awards, including the American Evaluation Association’s 2016 Outstanding Evaluation Award and 2011 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Government Evaluation Award. He is also the recipient of 2016 Donald and Alice Stone Outstanding Practitioner Award from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA).

Rakesh contributes to the field of evaluation through service on (1) the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Evaluation, (2) the board of the ASPA Center for Accountability and Performance, and (3) the advisory board of the Rucks Group, a research and evaluation firm based in Dayton, Ohio.

Recently he wrote a chapter for the book Evaluation Failures, published by Sage (2019). His chapter was titled, “I Didn’t Know I Would Be a Tightrope Walker Someday: Balancing Evaluator Responsiveness and Independence.”

In the past, he served on the American Evaluation Association’s board of directors, the editorial advisory board of New Directions for Evaluation, and the US Comptroller General’s Advisory Council on Government Auditing Standards.

Rakesh is passionate about improving the lives of people in his community through nonprofit work. He serves on the board of directors of Jannus, an Idaho nonprofit providing health and human services.