From Data to Dinner: Kristina Callina’s Story of Consulting, Entrepreneurship, and Motherhood

Kristina Callina is the Co-Founder and Scientific Director at Lynch Research Associates (LRA), where she leads data driven program evaluations for youth serving organizations. With a PhD in Human Development, Kristina helps these organizations use data to inform decision making and improve outcomes. Balancing a consulting career with being a mother to a 4th grader is no easy feat. She navigates the challenges of both by constantly prioritizing to ensure both her business and family thrive. In this blog, we’ll explore Kristina’s professional insights and learn how she strives to stay inspired in both her work and home life.

What’s your profession?

I am the Co-Founder and Scientific Director at Lynch Research Associates (LRA), an independent evaluation consulting firm. Youth-serving organizations want to know “what works”, and they need to communicate that information to stakeholders and funders. So basically, we help youth-serving organizations use data to drive decision-making and strategic planning. I have a PhD in Human Development, which has given me training and expertise in program evaluation, positive youth development, and qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. Prior to working full-time as an independent consultant, I was a Research Professor at Tufts University and did a stint as a data analyst in the private sector for a few years. 

Describe a typical work day for you.

Our current portfolio includes about eight organizations of different sizes and stages of the evaluation process. So my typical work activities involve a lot of project management, but you’ll also find me coding and analyzing data, preparing reports, and meeting with clients. We believe effective storytelling and decision-making with data starts at the beginning of the research process, asking the right research questions and designing a rigorous study that will deliver high-quality, actionable data – so we partner very closely with our clients to make sure their voices are front and center throughout the whole project.

What’s the biggest challenge you face at your job?

As a caregiver and small business owner, structuring my day is the biggest challenge! I am constantly monitoring and adjusting my priorities. It’s a balance between delivering our projects on-time and on-budget, and getting dinner on the table every night. Well, most nights.

Do you have a morning routine?

I wish! Most mornings, the focus is getting my 4th grader out the door on time with everything she needs. Otherwise I tend to go where my energy takes me: sometimes I’ll work out or start dinner, sometimes I sit down right away with my coffee and kick off the work day. One thing that stays consistent is that my husband and I like to take a 15-minute walk together after the school bus leaves to catch up and photosynthesize. 

What are your favorite productivity tips or hacks?

At Lynch Research Associates, we have put a lot of effort into operating procedures and templates. We document best practices for everything from onboarding new clients to writing final reports, and we revisit these regularly. This focus on process helps us ensure that deliverables are on time and on budget.

What do you listen to during the day?

The podcast BizChix by Natalie Eckdahl has truly elevated our business practices and I recommend it to every small business owner for advice on everything from niching to hiring to pricing. But I love to laugh and I love non-fiction – I never miss an episode of the Deep Dive podcast, and two audiobooks I just finished are Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Malcolm Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point. 

How do you benefit (or as a new member what do you hope to benefit) from using a coworking space?

I’ve been a member of Groundwork New Bedford since March 2023. I joined because sometimes I need a place outside my home to focus. It’s such a beautiful, light-filled space, I feel so productive here. My partner and I regularly hold working sessions in The Shuttle conference room, it has everything we need! I also love meeting other folks in the Groundwork community – I grew up in Mattapoisett but only recently moved back to the area, and it’s nice to stay connected to what other small businesses are up to in the South Coast.

What’s in your digital toolbox? (Favorite apps, hardware, software, etc.)

For project management, we’ve been loving monday.com. We have a Monday meeting each week to monitor progress and set priorities. My data analysis tools include R and coloop.ai. 

What inspires you?

It’s a long list! I’m fortunate enough to have an incredible team at LRA. My business partner, Alicia Lynch, is a brilliant and thoughtful research scientist, she inspires me to work creatively and to innovate on our evaluation methods and products. My husband and daughter have been supportive throughout this whole journey, they are a constant source of inspiration. Every day I feel excited to grow this business that has been such a great fit for me and my family. 

What are some of your goals for the future?

I want to evolve into more leadership and mentoring roles in the program evaluation space. There are so many independent consulting firms like ours in Massachusetts and around the country, and we’ve grown a lot in our professional development through networking with them. Program evaluation touches everything from climate change and workforce development initiatives to out-of-school-time activities and effectiveness of literacy and math curricula. I attended my first evaluation industry conference this year, the annual meeting of the American Evaluation Association, and I was so energized by all the great work happening in the field – in the next few years I’ll be looking for opportunities to help move program evaluation forward. 

Please provide any links you would like us to share to your socials, websites, events, etc:

• LRA Website: https://www.lynchresearchassociates.com/
  • (By the way, do any of the locations on our website look familiar? We did the photoshoot at Groundwork in New Bedford!)
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tinacallina
• Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, Adventures in Research!