Meet us

We are a team of research, evaluation, and strategy super nerds using our powers to effect social change.

About us

We are your research, evaluation, and strategy friends helping you do you, better.

Clarity was founded in 2012 and grew out of prior experiences in nonprofit consulting that left us wanting for greater impact.

We are a small woman- and minority-owned organization, dedicated to uplifting vulnerable voices seldom heard and contributing to upstream, broad-based, inclusive, and community-supportive efforts. We partner with mission-driven organizations to support thriving communities.

We are known for our collaborative approach, rigorous research, commitment to social justice, strategic thought partnership, and for being nice and easy to work with!

Clarity's professionalism and collaborative approach exceeded our expectations. Their leadership ensured the success of our highly visible project, managing multiple partners and guiding us to achieve our community goals. Working with them was both a pleasure and a rewarding experience!

Alicia Morales
Director of Adult Long Term Care Division, Santa Cruz County

Our team

We are a team of inquisitive data nerds committed to amplifying your impact through collaborative partnership.

Penelope Huang

Founder + ceo | INTJ

For nearly two decades, Penny has been using her PhD powers for good, supporting nonprofit, philanthropic, and government organizations in their work to bolster thriving communities, families, and children.

Penny seeks to elevate social justice and equity and identify root causes to right the wrongs in her world. She is experienced in program evaluation and research design, and in a variety of methodological approaches to data collection, analysis, and dissemination of findings. Penny provides thought partnership and all manner of supports from meeting facilitation to strategic planning. Her pet content areas of expertise include early learning, school readiness, youth development, and community and family wellness.
Penny loves to think strategically with partners to bring about human-centered systems change. Her happy place is envisioning and then engineering the path forward that checks all the boxes and achieves the desired outcomes as defined by those most impacted by the work.
Penny holds an MA in Psychology from Brandeis University, a PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington, and completed postdoctoral work in Family Demography at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.

Lynne Mobilio

Assistant Director | ENFJ

Lynne began her career in political analysis and public opinion polling before coming to community-based research. She excels at making meaning out of a pile of chaotic data to make the world a more equitable a place.

Lynne began her career in political analysis and public opinion polling in the Bay Area. She then co-founded a boutique market research firm, helping clients such as Procter & Gamble, Olay, Amazon, 1-800-Flowers, Johnson & Johnson deeply understand their customers and build relevant strategy. When she wanted to focus on more social issues, she became Research Director for a Bay Area evaluation firm, leading research to support school readiness, early childhood education, and family supportive services. Lynne has also gathered practical experience working directly in classrooms from TK through 8th grade developing science and social emotional curricula, leading parent communities, encouraging parent engagement, and examining issues related to transition points over the K-8 arc.
Lynne holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Kristi Kelly

Senior Consultant | INTJ

As a veteran social research professional and data analyst, Kristi has designed and conducted evaluation and assessment projects in a variety of content areas, with a focus on improving outcomes for individuals from marginalized or underrepresented groups.

Most recently, she worked for an organization providing research and evaluation to the computing community to support increasing the diversity of the computing research field. Kristi has extensive training and experience in research design and methodology, project management, survey design, data management and analysis, and creating compelling, insightful research communications.
Kristi holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Maya Lawton

Senior Research Associate | ENFJ-A

Maya is a policy analyst and community organizer committed to advancing racial equity and social justice across all her work. She is passionate about elevating and centering the voices of those most impacted by policies in decision-making.

Maya finds meaning in using evidence-based research to design and implement policy solutions that promote community well-being, safety, and joy. Her expertise areas include research and evaluation, particularly in the policy fields of education, early childhood development, and inclusion.
Maya holds a Master of Public Policy from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and a BA in Philosophy from the University of San Francisco.

Yoonyoung Kwak

Senior analyst + Tableau specialist | ENTP

Yoonyoung brings over 10 years of rigorous academic research and statistical training to our community-based research to promote improved outcomes for those furthest from opportunity.

Yoonyoung is an academic researcher and an advanced data analyst with research experience in child and youth development, school readiness, probation, family studies, social work, public health, mental health, and education. She ha expertise in methodology, program evaluation, statistics, data analysis, data cleaning and management, and data mining using various statistical software programs such as SAS, SPSS, R, Mplus, Stata, and Tableau. She is skilled at visualizing data and creating dashboards using maps and interactive figures in Tableau.
Yoonyoung holds a PhD in Human Development & Family Studies with a dual degree in Statistics from Purdue University.
She is also a certified Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator instructor!

Learn what we've been up to

OUT OF OFFICE

When we’re not slaying data…

You’ll often spot our team engaging our minds and bodies with all our hearts, attending live music events, traveling, hiking, running, playing “house”, and nerding out to our favorite public radio stations.