Claire Kovach is the senior research analyst at the Keystone Research Center (KRC). She holds a doctoral degree in Sociology from Penn State, where her research centered on poverty and material hardship.

Claire started at Penn State in 2016, entering with a master’s degree from the University of Akron, Ohio. During her Penn State graduate career, she published, taught, completed an internship in Washington DC, and worked in the Census Research Data Center (RDC) on campus.

In her job at KRC, she leads and assists others in using data to analyze the economy and public policies. She develops and/or supports policy recommendations, and works to present those results in accessible and persuasive public research and policy analysis. Claire brings the perspective of a non-academic career path that researchers with graduate training can take.