Research Interests: Education, cultural sociology, stratification and inequality, computational and mixed methods

Hannah Castner is a PhD student in sociology and a Presidential Scholar at Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Hannah graduated summa cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with degrees in sociology and data science. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on segregation through an REU at Texas A&M University and interned with the Data Labs team at the Pew Research Center. In addition, her honors thesis considered how U.S. history teachers view and defend their occupations amid increased debates about the content of history education. 

As a graduate student, Hannah intends to examine how culture shapes and reproduces inequality within education systems. She is interested in the claims of parents, teachers, politicians, and administrators regarding what should be taught in public schools and who gets to decide this. In particular, she plans to study recent debates about teaching race and gender-related topics in U.S. schools. 

Previous Degrees:
B.A. in Sociology and Data Science, Mount Holyoke College, 2022