Monalisa leads the USAID Learns team in Vietnam as the Chief of Party. She creates a healthy work environment for Learns team members to do their best work, manages relationships with USAID offices, and ensures high-quality work across Learns’ services areas for USAID and implementing partners: facilitation, design, research and evaluation, monitoring, and capacity strengthening.
Her 18 years of experience includes long-term, field-based senior management and technical positions in Washington, D.C., Palestine, Yemen, and Vietnam.
Monalisa was a co-creator of USAID’s Collaborating, Learning & Adapting (CLA) Framework and Maturity Tool and several other CLA resources on behalf of USAID.
Previously, Monalisa held leadership positions on contracts and cooperative agreements totaling over $150 million USD. She served as the Deputy Chief of Party for USAID Learns in Vietnam, the Deputy Chief of Party for USAID LEARN (a global CLA mechanism), and the head of monitoring, evaluation and learning, gender integration, and communications for the USAID Local Governance & Infrastructure Program in the West Bank.
She has worked in 17 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Her specialties include: creating healthy work environments in which staff learn and continuously improve; designing new programs and strategies; facilitating multistakeholder collaboration; strengthening local capacity; and leadership coaching. Monalisa has a MS in Organization Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University.