Glissando Strategies Group LLC
SBA Certified WOSB
UEI: JJESGZ2M2DE6
CAGE Code: 20PF1
NAICS: 541720, 541611, 518210, 541910, 541618, 541990
About Glissando Strategies Group LLC
Glissando Strategies Group is a woman-owned, boutique consulting service committed to empowering organizations with data analytics and program evaluation. We specialize in enhancing operational efficiency, driving growth, and maximizing cost-effectiveness for organizations across diverse industries.
Our team of experienced consultants is dedicated to delivering exceptional results by understanding your challenges and goals, crafting customized strategies, and implementing effective solutions that propel your organization forward. You can download a copy of our capabilities statement here:
Our Specialized Services
Explore our range of specialized consulting services designed to leverage data analytics and program evaluation for strategic organizational growth.
Program & Impact Evaluation
Design and execution of quasi-experimental and mixed-methods evaluations — including randomized and comparison-group studies, survey design, in-depth interviews, and focus groups — for agencies and organizations that need defensible answers about what's working and why.
Data Analytics & Governance
Full-scope statistical analysis (sampling, significance testing, multivariate modeling) paired with data governance frameworks that help organizations manage, protect, and actually use the data they collect — increasingly informed by AI-assisted methods.
Equity-Centered Evaluation
Evaluation design and stakeholder engagement approaches that build equity into the research process itself, not just the findings — from survey instrument design through dissemination.
Our Founder.
Dr. Stacey Merola is an award-winning evaluator, researcher, and data strategist with 25 years of social science research experience, including 19+ years leading program evaluations and organizational research for federal, nonprofit, and commercial clients. She has directed large-scale, mixed-methods evaluations for agencies including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of State, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — including designing and launching CISA's first-ever agency-wide stakeholder impact survey.
Dr. Merola's work has twice won the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Publication Award in Educational Program Evaluation, and she is co-author of Social Science Careers Beyond the Academy (Routledge, 2023). She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University and a 2025 certification in No-Code AI/ML from MIT, which she applies to bring modern, AI-informed methods into evaluation and data governance work.
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She is a Board Vice President at CASA of Baltimore and co-hosts The Method to Our Madness, a podcast exploring the art, ethics, and impact of evaluation and applied social science research.
Stacey Merola, Ph.D.
Founder & Principal Scientist
Focused Industries
Our consulting firm offers specialized services tailored to meet the unique needs of organizations. From leveraging data analytics to assessing program effectiveness, we provide expert guidance and solutions to help your organization thrive and grow.
Education
Two decades of evaluation work across K–12 and higher ed — from 21st Century Community Learning Centers afterschool programs and Magnet Schools Assistance Program evaluations to statewide STEM program reviews (31 states, 520 programs) and college dropout/persistence research. We help school systems and education nonprofits turn limited data infrastructure into defensible, actionable findings.
Technology and Cybersecurity
Led evaluation design for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), including the agency's first-ever stakeholder impact survey, and directed results compilation from an evaluation of CMS's Beneficiary Claims Data API. We help technology and data-driven organizations measure whether their tools and programs are actually delivering impact.
Nonprofit
Drawing on prior experience with the needs of nonprofits, such as board-level data governance work with CASA of Baltimore, we bring rigorous, right-sized evaluation to organizations that don't have an in-house analytics team — without requiring a large-organization budget.
State & Federal Government
Extensive experience across federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, CMS, and the Department of Education — designing evaluation and survey methodology, managing PRA packages and human subjects' protections, and reporting to agency stakeholders and project officers.
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