Hi! My name is Hannah Owczar, and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I am a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Human Rights from The University of Winnipeg in 2017 and a diploma in Creative Communications from RRC Polytech in 2019. Alongside my academic training, I work as a Technical Writer with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP), where I support research, communications, and knowledge translation and mobilization activities.

My research interests include income inequality, social welfare policy, and I have been consulted nationally and internationally as an expert on basic income in Canada. Prior to my role at MCHP, I worked with Dr. Evelyn Forget at the University of Manitoba and together we authored Radical Trust: Basic Income for Complicated Lives, published by ARP Books in 2021. The book highlights gaps in Canadian social welfare policy through the voices and lived experiences of people navigating poverty. My current research explores the income support landscape for youth aging out of Child and Family Services care in Manitoba, with a particular focus on the potential of a basic income to better support young adults during this transition.

Beyond academia and professional work, I have been active in community organizing for more than a decade. I currently sit on the Steering Committee of Make Poverty History Manitoba and am a member of the Basic Income Youth Collective, a pan-Canadian group advocating for economic justice. I am drawn to SPECTRUM’s emphasis on community collaboration, relationship-building, and centring lived and living experience, and I am keen to continue building skills in cross-sectoral research that uses evidence to drive meaningful and just policy change.