About Us

Why not ask students about college success?

Our team pondered this question a few years ago. We were perplexed by the number of education surveys using vague questions about topics tangential to student success.

Our realization: academics design college student surveys primarily to gather data for their books and articles, not to provide actionable data to colleges. Higher education needed a new approach to student surveys.

Abandoning the goal of academic publications was liberating. We would leverage our decades of survey research experience to do something different: design surveys where students are not required to answer every question, customize surveys for every college, and quickly adopt and change the technology we use to collect data from students.

We provide you with useful data at the lowest possible cost. We develop our surveys with your needs in mind, not the needs of academic researchers. We charge a flat fee, because our costs do not rise with the number of respondents.

Our goal is simple: to help you help your students succeed.

PAUL UMBACH, PH.D.

PRINCIPAL

Paul has spent decades surveying students and faculty, analyzing survey data, and studying college student success. He started his career working in institutional research, first at Tidewater Community College, and then at the University of Maryland Office of Institutional Research and Planning.

After a stint as Research Analyst at the National Survey of Student Engagement, he landed a faculty position at the University of Iowa. He is now a professor at North Carolina State University, where he teaches courses on quantitative methods and survey research, along with higher education courses on finance, organizational theory, and educational policy. Paul has an international reputation as an expert in the areas of survey methods, research design, college student access and success, and institutional research.

In January 2015, Percontor, LLC launched and began offering online, synchronous research methods workshops. At the same time, the team at Percontor began working on the RISC, convinced they could make a difference in higher education by providing colleges and universities actionable data on student success.

MEGAN VALLEJO

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Megan is the Director of Operations for the RISC Survey, where she works closely with RISC clients throughout the survey administration process, from initial contact through survey launch and reporting. At Percontor she is responsible for workshop management, marketing, and customer service.

Megan received her M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech, with graduate work specializing in Human Factors Engineering. Her undergraduate B.S. from Virginia Tech is in Management Science, with minors in International Studies and French. Her career field is diverse, including experience in human factors engineering, aviation and transportation systems, and software development. As a software engineer doing government contract work, she was involved in the design, development, documentation, and testing of software supporting the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs and the START Treaty.