Visiting Scholar Sandra Hanson
We welcomed spring quarter’s visiting scholar Sandra Hanson, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic University. Her research examines the gender structure of educational and occupational systems in a comparative context. Dr. Hanson’s work on gender, race/ethnicity, and science has been funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. In a recent NSF funded exchange, she worked with a geographer at Humboldt University in an effort to map women’s access to science cross-nationally. She also received a number of Fulbright awards to study gender systems in Eastern Europe and cross-nationally. Dr. Hanson testified before the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Science and Technology hearing on “Encouraging the Participation of Female Students in STEM Fields.”
Her recent books The Latino/a American Dream (Texas A&M University Press, 2016) and The American Dream in the 21st Century (Temple University Press, 2011), examine opportunity systems in the U.S. with a special focus on the most recent set of U.S. immigrants. Swimming Against the Tide: African American Girls in Science Education (Temple University Press, 2009) examined the experiences of African American girls in the science education system. Lost Talent:Women in the Sciences (Temple University Press, 1996) was a culmination of her research on the loss of talented young women in the science pipeline. Her research has also been published in numerous journals including Sociology of Education, Public Opinion Quarterly, Demography, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, and Journal of Marriage and Family Studies. She is a Sigma Xi distinguished lecturer.