Alexis Hanna: Couples and career choice strategies and priorities

Title

Couples and career choice strategies and priorities

Mentor

Department

Biosketch

Alexis Hanna, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign before joining the management faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno. She studies career interests, career choices and development, and how people "fit" with their careers. She also studies recruitment and hiring strategies to achieve better employee fit, and some of her newer research incorporates other topics like artificial intelligence (AI) and couples/romantic partners. Dr. Hanna teaches research methods and statistics courses to business students at both the undergraduate and Ph.D. levels. She has received the College of Business Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2022), Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award (2023), and Excellence in Research Award (2025).

Outside of work, Hanna loves spending time with her family and kids, going on hikes and trail runs, going to the beach, and trying new restaurants.

Project overview

This research investigates how couples make career decisions and develop in their careers together, as well as how each member of a couple prioritizes their own career in tandem with their relationship and their partner's career. This project may involve a mix of interviews and survey methodology, so the Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) student will likely be trained in conducting interviews, taking notes as data, working through qualitative data like words and phrases to identify themes, putting together surveys, learning basic data analysis, and conducting literature reviews. There are also other career-related projects ongoing in Hanna's Analytics, Recruitment, and Careers (ARC) Lab, so the PREP student may become involved with other projects if they show interest in other topics and tasks.

Pack Research Experience Program information and application