By WCER Communications
UW–Madison’s Nicole Bowman has been honored as the inaugural recipient of the 2025 Ricardo Millett Award for Racial Equity in Evaluation. The award, sponsored by the American Evaluation Association (AEA), recognizes individuals who have advanced racial equity through outstanding contributions to evaluation practice, scholarship, and leadership.
Bowman, an active member of the Mohican and Lunaape Nations in Wisconsin, is a research scientist and expert in culturally responsive research, policy, and evaluation with the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative, housed in the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). Millett was a national pioneer in evaluation equity, diversity, and inclusion who died in 2024.
“Bowman’s work continues the legacy of Ricardo Millett by pushing the field toward greater inclusion, accountability, and equity in both process and impact,” the AEA said in its award announcement in early November.
Bowman exemplifies the award’s values through an unwavering commitment to Indigenous and racial justice, culturally responsive evaluation, and community-driven approaches that elevate diverse voices and knowledge systems. She received AEA’s Robert Ingle Service Award in 2018 as its youngest and first Indigenous recipient, and the 2024 AEA Presidential Award. She is a research affiliate with the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Bowman earned her doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis at UW–Madison in 2015. Her dissertation is recognized as the nation’s first multi-jurisdictional study to systemically examine how Tribal and non-Tribal educational policy is developed and implemented in the education of Indigenous students attending K–12 public schools.