Cai Thomas serves as the Project Manager and Evaluation Specialist at the Policy & Innovation Center (PIC).

In this role, Cai supports implementation and continuous improvement of PIC’s behavioral health initiatives, including the ELEVATE Behavioral Health Workforce Fund and the Strategic Behavioral Health Initiative. He oversees program coordination, performance tracking, and contract and grant compliance, and helps lead evaluation efforts by working with research partners to develop frameworks, monitor key metrics, and turn data into insights for decision-making.

Cai brings more than 15 years of experience in program management, monitoring and evaluation, and gender equality and social inclusion across the nonprofit and international development sectors. Most recently at IREX, he managed a $5.1 million, State Department-funded youth development and gender equity program serving youth ages 13 to 17 across nine countries. Cai oversaw program management and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) activities, led a team of nine, and held full responsibility for budget forecasting, reporting, and funder compliance. As technical advisor on gender equality and social inclusion and safeguarding, he advised teams on grounding their projects in a gender equality and social inclusion framework, trained staff on its principles, and contributed to new business proposals, including leading a $1.7 million supplemental grant proposal. He also co-developed the organization’s safeguarding policy.

Earlier in his career, Cai managed the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program, partnering with universities to deliver professional development for visiting educators. He also supported programming at Peace Corps Headquarters and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia. Cai co-founded the Global Center for LGBTI+ Freedom and Education, growing it to more than 40 volunteers across 20 countries. His research on inclusive education policy has been published in Education Policy Analysis Archives and presented at the annual meetings of the Comparative and International Education Society. He was named to the National Peace Corps Association’s 40 Under 40 in 2025 and received IREX’s All Star Award for DEI leadership.

A graduate of the San Diego LGBT Community Center’s Young Professionals Council Academy (Class of 2026), Cai is active in the local LGBTQ+ community and has volunteered as a youth mentor with Promises2Kids, Rainbow Labs, and Brave Trails. He holds a Master of Arts in Comparative and International Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Virginia Tech.

Cai enjoys photography, spending time outdoors, and learning languages, and speaks conversational Spanish.