Assessment and Evaluation Team | Medical Education Office of Assessment & Evaluation

Claudio Violato, PhD, Assistant Dean for Assessment and Evaluation

Claudio Violato has taught at and held leadership positions at Wake Forest School of Medicine, the University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, and the University of Alberta. In his current position, he is responsible for all aspects of assessment for the MD Degree program.

Dr. Violato’s publications in assessment and psychometrics include 10 books and more than 300 scientific and technical articles in major journals such as Academic Medicine, Medical Education, British Medical Journal, and the Lancet. He has received millions of dollars in research funding from various institutions including the US National Institutes of Health. His most recent book, Assessing Competence in Medicine and Other Health Professions is published by Taylor & Francis, 2019.

Esther Dale, PhD, Director of Assessment

Esther Dale holds a PhD in Science Education from the University of Minnesota and a BA in Economics from St Olaf College. She has worked as an analytical chemist, taught science and science methods in higher education, taught science and evaluated teachers in K-12, evaluated teachers using edTPA, a national teacher performance assessment, contributed content and reviewed the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment-Science and developed university-level assessments, and serves on the Aquifer Sciences Board. In her current role, Dr. Dale oversees pre-clerkship and clerkship assessment and leads the development of a bank of 10,000 multiple-choice items.

Jackie Gauer, PhD, Director, Program Evaluation

Jackie Gauer holds a PhD in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development and an MA in Educational Psychology, both from the University of Minnesota, as well as a BA in Psychology from Carleton College. As the Director of Program Evaluation, Dr. Gauer oversees all program evaluation processes for the UME program, including course evaluations and reviews, clerkship evaluations and reviews, and various other evaluation dashboards and reports, such as the annual State of Undergraduate Medical Education Report. She also conducts research related to improving medical education.

Cynthia Johnson, Operations Associate

Cynthia Johnson has worked for the Medical School for seven years, after five years at Hamline School of Business. She previously did outsourced marketing for Hewlett-Packard and BYU Independent Study. Cynthia attended Brigham Young University and the University of Montana. She supports Dr. Violato, the Assessment Committee, and A&E team operations related to finance and contracts, human resources, and organization. She works on special projects and coordinates test administration for Shelf exams and Institutional Assessments (CCA, Year 2 OSCE).

Kayla Lien, MA, Assessment Specialist

Kayla Lien holds a an MA in Applied Child and Adolescent Psychology from the University of Minnesota and a BA in Psychology and Biomedical Sciences from The University of Minnesota-Morris. As the Assessment Specialist, Kayla works with faculty in the Pre-Clinical courses to create and administer exams to students in Years 1 & 2, including post-exam procedures, such as a comprehensive review of the exam.

Eric Martin LaPlant, MA, Assessment Systems Analyst

Eric Martin LaPlant holds an MA in Museology from the University of Washington and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota - Duluth. As the Assessment Systems Analyst he serves in the role of system administrator for a number of the software systems used for medical school assessments and evaluations. He also serves in the role of project manager for assessment and evaluation processes, and product owner for the design of new software systems. As a team member, he contributes to research activities, leads a variety of program review activities, and develops reports to communicate the results for a variety of assessment and evaluation activities.

Junxiu Yu, PhD, Evaluation Analyst

Junxiu Yu holds a PhD in Learning, Design, and Technology from the Pennsylvania State University. As the evaluation analyst, Dr. Yu implements course evaluations and composes the Annual Course Review (ACR) reports for the UME program. She also supports EPA and CSA assessments for clerkships. Additionally, she conducts research related to assessment and evaluation in medical education.