Expertise & Experience for Every Project

ARC is built around a small core of partners who offer exceptional experience and expertise. We are professionals who have dedicated our careers to helping children and youth build brighter futures. 

When projects warrant it, we draw on our connections in academic and service communities to engage specialists who assist with specific phases of our work. Graduate level research assistants perform appropriate tasks as needed. Our streamlined profile allows us to provide superior quality and value. 

ARC's Team

John Harris, Founder and Principal

John Harris, Ed.M., founded Applied Research Consulting to bridge the gap he perceived between research and programming as an academic researcher in the late ‘90’s. His experience as a teacher and counselor serving urban and rural at-risk youth strongly influences his approach to research. John specializes in action research, instrument development, and the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods to provide the most robust insight on the programs he studies.

John has consulted to a variety of school- and community-based programs but maintains a primary research focus on mentoring. His mentoring research centers on relationship quality, how it varies across mentoring models, and how it influences psychosocial and academic outcomes. He is enthusiastically pursuing an initiative to extend rigorous evaluation to programs that are currently underrepresented in existing research.  His vision for ARC’s mentoring research, already realized in part through ARC’s development of nationally respected measures of relationship quality, is to develop measurable standards of mentoring relationship quality that may be applied across mentoring programs and approaches.

John oversees every phase of ARC’s projects, focusing the expertise of ARC's team to the best advantage for each project.

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Kathleen Murphy, Program Specialist

Kathleen Murphy has led Yavapai Big Brothers Big Sisters (YBBBS) for 31 years, currently as President and CEO.  Under her leadership, YBBBS has grown into a program that serves 900 children, ranking in the top 2% of national BBBS agencies for children served per capita. Kathleen served as President of The Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Executive Director’s/CEO’s Association for 2 years and was the 2006 recipient of the Margaret Slack Award -- a national award presented annually to a Big Brother Big Sisters professional staff member who has demonstrated an outstanding level of professionalism and quality of service. 

Kathleen conducts workshops and training seminars on program, fundraising and specific issues dealing with children and consults with school and churches in the area of molestation prevention.  She has presented on many occasions at National and Regional Conferences for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada and at the Harvard University Symposium on Mentoring.

Kathleen consults to ARC on program design and development.

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Michael Nakkula, Research Specialist

Michael Nakkula, Ed.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, directs Project IF “Inventing the Future.” Mike created Project IF nine years ago to investigate ways that support systems could best help students from low-income backgrounds to invent positive futures. Grounded in a philosophy of growth and optimal development, the Project emphasizes "invention" and the development of possibilities over the reduction or remediation of problems.  

Mike's research focuses on the factors that place youth at risk for academic failure and the strengths students use to overcome them. His approach has theoretical underpinnings in phenomenology and hermeneutics, and he also is guided by his training as a cross-cultural counselor and psychotherapist.  His publications include numerous articles and chapters as well as the co-authored book, Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships With Youth.

Mike has partnered with ARC since its inception.  He consults on research design, instrument development, and analysis. 

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