What's In A Name
Our name says it all. We reflect what already shines.
Estella
The Star
Lucia
The Light
Grounded in the belief that lived experience is worth honoring as truth, and that being heard with care is itself part of the change.
Estella Lucia Evaluation was founded by Dr. LaShaune Johnson because she believes the stories communities share through trust deserve reverent treatment, and that lived experience holds the power to transform systems.
As a medical sociologist and cancer survivor, LaShaune has spent her career working at the intersections where health inequities take root, in the spaces between policy and lived reality, between systems and the people navigating them, between what gets measured and what truly matters.
We partner with communities experiencing health disparities, regularly focusing on the lived experience(s) of cancer patients and their caregivers throughout the cancer care continuum, increasing community participation research studies, historically marginalized communities' participation in Medical Legal Partnerships and other programs addressing non-medical drivers of health, integrating community perspectives to understand disparate outcomes in maternal and child and LGBTQ+ health and quality improvement in community-engaged initiatives. We use methods like poetic listening, journey mapping, Photovoice, "data parties" and focus groups not just to gather information, but to create counterspaces where communities can heal, connect, and see their wisdom reflected back.
Through culturally responsive evaluation, coaching, and training, we help organizations move from extraction to partnership, from data collection to story honoring.
Estella
The Star
Lucia
The Light
To honor the wisdom that already exists within communities through culturally responsive evaluation, coaching, and training that bears witness to lived experiences and co-creates pathways for transformation.
Communities experiencing health disparities see their stories recognized as powerful truth, have the power to shape evaluation processes, and experience being truly seen, heard, and honored.
Dr. Johnson's path began at Wellesley College, where she paired a Sociology major with Medieval and Renaissance Studies — an interdisciplinary foundation that hinted at the humanities-meets-social-science approach she would carry into her career. She went on to complete her doctorate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with doctoral emphases in Feminist Studies and Human Development, and postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Connecticut Health Center and the University of Missouri.
Across two decades of work, LaShaune has led and contributed to research and evaluation projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Susan G. Komen, the American Sociological Association, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Her research spans care across the cancer care continuum, maternal and child health, LGBTQ+ health, structural competency, healthcare navigation, and the social determinants that shape each of them.
She is an alumna of the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program and trained in Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Engagement (CREE). She currently serves as a Clinical Professor in Health Systems and Population Health Sciences at the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, University of Houston, and recently completed her term as Immediate Past President of the Midwest Sociological Society, where her presidency centered community-partnered research and teaching beyond the academy.
Her active service roles include the Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center Community Advisory Board, the American Sociological Association Early Career Award for Community Engaged Scholarship Award Committee, the American Sociological Association Sociology Action Network Committee, and the Cancer Legal Care (Minnesota) Board of Directors. She is a Certified Listener Poet through The Good Listening Project, and her poetry has appeared in ADVANCE Journal and in a recent collection called Say Her Name: Honoring Henrietta Lacks' Legacy. At the University of Houston, she has recently become a Director for the Inprint Narrative & Lyric Fellows Program.
Recognition for her work includes the 2026 University of Houston Presidential Circle Award for her 2024 co-edited publication, Research as Accompaniment: Solidarity and Community Partnerships for Transformative Action. At Creighton University, she received the Dean's Award for Graduate Faculty Excellence and the Rev. John P. Schlegel Diversity Award for Excellence and Innovation.
The disparities we explore exist where political, economic, social, historical, environmental, and psychological forces collide. We create space to name these realities honestly and co-create solutions with the communities living them.
At Estella Lucia, we translate lived experiences into forms that move both hearts and systems. We create the conditions where community stories are recognized as truth that matters, where evaluation builds strength rather than drains it, and where the process of being witnessed becomes part of the healing.
Whether you're scoping an evaluation, exploring a coaching engagement, or considering a long-term partnership, we'd love to hear what you're working on.
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