As the former Chief Research Officer at Feeding America, Tom Summerfelt, Ph.D., led the development and execution of Feeding America's strategic research agenda-a roadmap for developing a deeper understanding of hunger in America, identifying the transformative strategies that will solve hunger and measuring and reporting the organization's progress along the way. He partnered with world-class external research experts to develop and conduct some of the most comprehensive and important studies on food insecurity-studies that are guiding changes in how our country addresses domestic hunger from the ground up. Tom provided leadership that enhanced alignment of data needs and supported the organization and the network in collecting data to inform success toward meeting Feeding America's strategic priorities within a measuring, evaluation, and learning context.


Prior to Feeding America, Tom served as the North America President of Convergence CT, where he worked collaboratively with global health care providers, life science companies, and payers in using technology to leverage real-world data to improve outcomes across the health care ecosystem. Before that, Tom served as the Vice President of Research & Innovation at Advocate Health Care, where he led a department that managed over 600 IRB-approved, clinical research studies at any given time and produced over 200 publications annually. Tom has spent over 20 years using research and program evaluation as vehicles to create collaboration and partnership among organizations, to make community programs more efficient and effective, and to demonstrate impact in the lives of people. His work has included diverse projects that share a common focus on improving outcomes for vulnerable populations and reducing social disparities. 

Tom earned his Ph.D. focused on evaluation research from Vanderbilt University and has held faculty appointments at Vanderbilt, Tennessee State, Michigan State, and The University of Chicago.