Kristan Gannaway administers externally funded research and sponsored projects in the Office of the Associate Dean for Research at The University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work, assisting faculty and research scientists in their efforts to secure and properly steward external funding. She also serves as development liaison for the school’s Office of the Associate Dean for Research.
At the heart of Kristan’s work is a commitment to creating opportunities for positive social change. By managing grants and contracts that enable groundbreaking social work research, she supports transformative initiatives in mental health, addiction recovery, criminal diversion, disability assistance, and youth empowerment.
Kristan earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English at Texas Tech University, with specializations in comparative literature and book history. She has published archival research in 18th– and 19th-century British literature and presented papers exploring Victorian literature, film adaptation, and bibliography at conferences held by several groups, including the College English Association and University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. She’s also taught university courses in literature, film, rhetoric, and composition at Texas Tech University while pursuing her MA and at the University of Missouri – Columbia while pursuing a Ph.D. After completing coursework for a Ph.D., she pivoted to non-profit development to use her skills and passion for the humanities more broadly in the mid-Missouri community.
She then shifted her efforts to non-profit development while in Columbia, Missouri, and had the opportunity to work with teams responsible for raising over $10 million in funds devoted to human services such as hunger relief, healthcare access, and youth-mentoring in central Missouri prior to returning home to Texas.