Mahasan Offutt-Chaney

Assistant Professor in the Education Department, Brown University
Postdoctoral Fellow in International and Public Affairs, 2019-2021
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Race and Ethnicity, 2019-2021

Areas of Interest: Education, race and social policy, history of education, Federal education policies, punishment, policing, school discipline.

Biography

Mahasan Offutt-Chaney has a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of California Berkeley. Her research agenda looks broadly at the historic nexus between Education, race and social policy.  Her dissertation work uses archival methods to explore how educational elite, including federal policymakers, use education and social policies to reproduce inequality by structuring practices that discipline and regulate over racialized poverty. Her previous works have looked at the ways contemporary education policy and urban school reform can be informed by historical perspectives on Black education. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a restorative justice coordinator at her alma mater, Berkeley High School. Mahasan received an M.S. in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.