Mahasan Offutt-Chaney

Mahasan Offutt-Chaney

Postdoctoral Fellow in Race and Ethnicity, 2019-2021

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (ABD)

Mahasan Offutt-Chaney completed here Ph.D. in education policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research agenda looks broadly at the historic nexus between education, race and social policy. Her current book project tentatively titled Federal Education Policy and the Disciplining Politics of Opportunity, uses archival methods to explore how educational elite, including federal policymakers, use educational “opportunity” programs, or policies designed to support low-income schools, to reproduce inequality by using such programs to strengthen punitive policies in low-income and urban schools. Mahasan’s 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. She is a 2019-2020 National Academy of Education/Spencer dissertation fellow.