Katie Kerstetter

Affiliate Faculty

Sociology: poverty and inequality, education, health disparities, and community-based and participatory approaches to research

Katie Kerstetter, Ph.D. is a Research Affiliate with the Center for Social Science Research at George Mason University and an Affiliated Research Associate with the Center for Population Studies at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on education, health and wellbeing, civic engagement, and school food and nutrition programs. She has a particular interest in studying the ways that schools are organized to respond to students' social, emotional, and material needs and the consequences of these approaches for students' and teachers' wellbeing in schools. Katie has experience with qualitative and quantitative methods and in participatory approaches to research and evaluation. At the CSSR, Katie has led a study of renters' participation in a local community association and participated in a qualitative study of immigrant professionals' civic engagement. Her research has been published in Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Spectrum, and Research in the Sociology of Health Care. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from George Mason University and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Maryland College Park.