A firm built on years of
working side by side.
Lesley Archabal, Allison Parsons, and Dawnyéa Jackson met during their doctoral program at the University of South Carolina. They earned their PhDs in public health, built careers across government, academia, hospitals, and the social sector, and stayed close. In late 2024, they founded the firm they had always wanted to build together.
Lesley Archabal, PhD
Dawnyéa Jackson, PhD
Dawnyéa leads program evaluation and applied research. She has designed and led large mixed-methods studies for federal agencies, the military, and behavior change organizations, helping programs tell their story with data and translate findings into action across sexual health, substance use, and behavioral health.
Lesley leads strategy, grants, and business development. Over her career she has procured millions in federal and foundation funding, directed community health assessments and improvement plans, and built coalitions across government, schools, and clinics. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist, Certified Fund Raising Executive, and a certified Project Management Professional.
Allison Parsons, PhD
Allison leads qualitative and community-based participatory research. Her expertise spans ethnography, in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and photovoice, with a focus on the social and environmental factors that shape health across the life course. She has authored more than thirty peer-reviewed publications on health equity.
The work was always shared. Now the firm is too.
Most consulting firms are assembled from strangers. HERE Consulting started the other way around. Three colleagues who trusted each other first, then decided to put their names on the door together.
That trust changes how the work feels. We argue about study design the way old friends do, openly and without ego, because the goal has never been to look right. It has been to get it right for the communities and organizations who depend on the answer.
We focus on health equity because the people most affected by health problems are too often the last ones consulted about the research meant to help them. We design our work to change that.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Principles that hold across every project.
Communities are collaborators.
The people closest to a problem help shape the questions and the findings, not just answer surveys.
Evidence over assumption.
We follow the data even when it complicates the story an organization expected to tell.
Honesty about fit.
If a project is not right for us, we say so and point you somewhere better.
Built to be used.
Reports that sit on a shelf are a failure. We design findings to drive decisions.