Dr. Hannah Thomas, a sociologist and geographer, brings over 20 years of experience in qualitative and mixed methods research addressing housing and economic inequality. Her work has ranged across the fields of housing, guaranteed income, workforce development, the racial wealth gap, community development, mortgages, and asset building. Dr. Thomas has worked with a range of clients from federal agencies such as the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Health and Human Services, to cities, states, and non-profits. She brings a participant and implementation orientation towards her research and helps produce methodological solutions in service of the end users of programs and policies. 

Dr. Thomas’ research has helped frame national policy conversations. Her recent work with colleagues from the Office of Policy Research and Evaluation within the department of Health and Human Services involves conducting participant interviews in career pathways program and bringing their experiences to the forefront of career pathway program design. Her work with colleagues evaluating guaranteed income pilots for the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income helps bring participant experience to the framing of the national policy conversation. While Dr. Thomas’ work contributes to national policy conversations, her work also breaks ground methodologically. As Director of Analysis on the Moving to Work landlord incentives demonstration for HUD, she is leading a study using a unique methodology—the Qualitative Impact Protocol. This study will be the first of its kind in the United States using a methodological approach developed at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.  

Over the course of her career, Dr. Thomas’ mixed methods work has informed a variety of national policy conversations. Her work at Brandeis University on the racial wealth gap informed Ford Foundation investments in research on employment capital and contributed to the national framing of drivers of the racial wealth gap. Methodological innovations, such as participant focused ethnographic research with HUD on the Rapid Rehousing Program, has deepened policymakers’ understanding of ways to strengthen the program.