Krista A. Haapanen

Background

I first learned about community psychology during my doctoral program, and I soon found that the associated values, principles, and research approaches were the academic "home" that I had been searching for. Through exposure to participatory and community-engaged research approaches, I learned that academic research can attend both to the practical concerns of people experiencing injustice and to advances in scholarship. I am excited to share my passion for community psychology, especially its commitment to interweaving the practice of research with the efforts, values, priorities, and narratives of people that research has misrepresented and harmed.

Education

• PhD, Community Research and Action, Vanderbilt University, 2024
• MS, Community Development, University of California, Davis, 2018
• BS, Biology, University of Puget Sound, 2014

Courses

• PSY 280: Introduction to Community Psychology

Research

My research explores the processes by which grassroots and community-based organizations pursue improvements in their communities' health and well-being. I use a community-engaged approach and mixed methods, examining the ways in which these organizations engage citizens in civic activities, build communities’ power to shape their futures, and generate lasting changes to community conditions. My work employs a "networked" ecological perspective that illuminates the role of social interaction in human, organizational, and community development, and my approach to scholarship is grounded in dual commitments to rigorous research and the production of actionable insights for use by practitioners, decision-makers, funders, and evaluators of community change efforts.