Aileen G. Zaballero, is a senior partner of Rothwell & Associates (R&A) with a dual-title Ph.D. in Workforce Education and Comparative International Education from The Pennsylvania State University. She has been a Certified Professional in Talent Development since 2009. Aileen has over 25 years of experience in the learning and development field and more than ten years researching what adults learn, how they know it, and the value placed on types of knowledge. As an instructional designer and learning consultant, she created various educational and training materials, including online videos and webinars. As a practitioner and researcher, Aileen believes it is critical to bridge academic discourse in workforce education (theory) with industry best practices (application) to address complex issues. She led a project to examine instructional design competencies; was a researcher and subject matter expert (SME) in competency modeling for the Advance Commercial Building Workforce (ACBW) project, funded by the US Department of Energy, aimed to develop a competency model and career map; and she was part of the team that developed ATD’s Talent Development Framework. Aileen has authored and co-authored chapters in Performance Consulting-Applying Performance Improvement in Human Resource Development (2013, John Wiley & Sons); co-edited and co-authored Optimizing Talent in the Federal Workforce (2014, Management Concepts); co-authored a chapter in Organization Development Fundamentals: Managing Strategic Change (2014, ASTD Press); co-edited The Competency Toolkit, 2nd Ed. (2014, HRD Press); and co-authored Increasing Learning & Development’s Impact Through Accreditation: How to drive-up training quality, employee satisfaction and ROI (2020, Palgrave McMillan).