2018 Graduate Achievement Award recipient
With a passion for topics related to inequality and wellbeing, Katrina seeks to understand complex problems and inform solutions through the social sciences with research in rural sociology, demography, and stratification. Her work addresses the tension between trying to understand both socioeconomic structure and agency in how they influence uneven development. Focusing on county-level analysis, Katrina statistically modeled the relationships between historical and geographical disadvantage and contemporary aggregate income and poverty, while exploring the roles of human capital and social capital. In addition to analyzing the multistate Delta region, she planned community engagement to pilot her ideas and receive feedback on her interpretations.