Teri A. Garstka

Teri is founder, co-director, strategic consultant, and IRIS’s biggest fan. Director of KU Social Dynamics Innovation Lab at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute, Teri has been involved in many large scale multi-partner data initiatives, helping use shared measurement approaches and solid implementation to support collective efforts to optimize the well-being of at risk children, youth, and families.

She is a strategic consultant for two software applications (DAISEY, IRIS) designed to make life easier, not harder, when it comes to serving families and demonstrating the impact of investments in high quality programs. Teri received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology in 1997 from the University of Kansas. She is continually working to understand how people and groups interact in a complex world, rigorously trying to bend systems and bureaucracy to better serve kids and families.

She wants you to know that, behind all that data-driven earnestness and at-all-costs altruism, she is hilarious. Secretly.