CRPH Staff Spotlight: Meet Lexi Jones

The Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare is pleased to introduce Lexi Jones, who joined us as Lead Evaluator in July 2026. 

For Lexi, the path to becoming an evaluator began with a desire to apply what she learned in graduate school to the real world. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from Campbell University and a Master of Science in Health and Exercise Science from Wake Forest University, she found an opportunity with South Carolina First Steps. 

There, she began building the evaluation skills that now guide her work at CRPH. 

She credits this experience for helping her get where she is today: “I am grateful to my previous supervisors and team at First Steps who took a chance on me six years ago, and who provided me with invaluable opportunities to grow my skills as a young evaluator.” 

As Lead Evaluator, Lexi will oversee how CRPH measures its impact across the state by working with funded programs to report on their outcomes. Guided by her experience and belief in continuous learning, Lexi pursues what she calls her “audacious goal”: making evaluation more approachable, accessible, and actionable across the Center. 

“We are very lucky Lexi joined our team. Her prior experience allowed her to jump right into the work, and her new perspective has already highlighted ways that we can improve our systems and processes. Lexi’s passion for collaboratively designed evaluations will allow us to gain new insights into the impact of our Center and help build capacity across all our funded programs,” said Samantha Renaud, Research Project Manager at CRPH. 

“We often hear powerful stories and quotes about the impact that a program had on an individual’s life,” Lexi said. “I am fortunate that my role allows me to provide the numbers that back up this narrative, or the ‘statistics behind the story.’” 

For Lexi, evaluation is more than answering, “Are we meeting our goals?” She uses evaluation to uncover factors behind success, identify barriers to progress, and share lessons learned across the Center.  

“Evaluation is critical to understanding our impact and finding new opportunities to grow. Lexi has helped us turn data into meaningful insights that drive ongoing improvement, and tells the story of our impact,” said Dr. Kevin Bennett, CRPH Director. 

A Florida native, Lexi considers herself a Carolina girl at heart after living in North Carolina through graduate school. She has since put down roots here in South Carolina with her husband and daughter. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring the state’s parks and trails, cooking, baking, trying new foods with her daughter, and spending time on her family’s homestead with their dogs, goats, chickens, and bees.