PhD Anthropology, UNC-CH 2020
Former Trainee, Carolina Population Center
Fulbright-Hays Fellow
Hannah received her PhD in biological anthropology at UNC, where she was also Predoctoral Trainee at the Carolina Population Center. Her work investigates how environmental exposures, and specifically psychosocial factors, shape health and development.
Hannah’s dissertation research investigated how maternal stress during and after pregnancy shapes women’s lives and infant development on San Cristóbal Island. Partnering with Hospital Oskar Jandl on the island, Hannah lived on San Cristóbal for one year interviewing women, administering surveys, and collecting biological measurements to assess how stress may shape maternal and infant stress regulation and subsequent risk for metabolic disease and neurobehavioral disorders. Hannah continues to analyze her data and has presented results of this work at the annual GSC Symposium on San Cristóbal as well as the annual meeting of the Human Biology Association.
Hannah’s research is funded by the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, the National Science Foundation and UNC’s Off Campus Dissertation Fellowship.
Research Projects
- Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies: The intergenerational effects of maternal stress in the Galápagos Islands
- Feasibility of Educational Support Measures for Parenting Skills and Mental Health Symptoms in Mothers of Young Children in the Galapagos
Publications
- Thompson AL, Houck KM, & Jahnke JR. (2019). Pathways linking caesarean delivery to early health in a dual burden context: Immune development and the gut microbiome in infants and children from Galápagos, Ecuador. American Journal of Human Biology, 31, e23219.
- Jahnke JR, Houck KM, Bentley ME, & Thompson AL. (2019). Rising rates of cesarean delivery in Ecuador: Socioeconomic and institutional determinants over two decades. Birth, 46(2), 335–343.