Megan E. Hall is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. Prior to coming to UK, she earned bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Plant Biology from North Carolina State University (2020) and a master’s degree in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University (2023). 

During her time at ASU, Megan served as Editorial Assistant and Assistant Editor of Appalachian Journal, the oldest peer-reviewed publication pertaining to the region. In 2023, she completed her master’s thesis, titled “The Individual and Community Effects of Tropical Storm Fred on Haywood County, NC.” In it, she uses interview data from local leaders and survivors of the titular disaster to identify ten themes related to the flood’s social implications for two communities. In her doctoral work, she plans to examine how climate and economic disasters interact with each other, using a community in Western North Carolina as a case study. More broadly, her research interests include Appalachia, community, disaster, and deindustrialization. She has experience with methods including interviews, archival research, and quantitative analysis in Stata.

Megan is a member of the Rural Sociological Society and the Appalachian Studies Association and has presented her work at the annual conferences of both organizations. Additionally, she served as a Historian’s Assistant at the 2024 RSS meeting. She also co-presented work on regional balladry emerging from the Great Flood of 1916 at the 2023 meeting of the Society of Appalachian Historians. In addition to her research, Megan is a teaching assistant and has worked with instructors teaching sections of Intro to Sociology, Sociology of Family, Environmental Justice, Classical Sociological Theory, and Environmental Sociology. 

Megan was born and raised in Candler, NC. She is a first-generation college student and is proudly from a working-class family. For over ten years, she has regularly volunteered with hunger alleviation groups such as Abundant Harvest, MANNA Food Bank, and the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program. Over the course of her career, she plans to continue to study her home region and work alongside her fellow Western North Carolinians for change.