Friday Fellow Feature: Mason Alexander-Hawk

Our Featured Fellow for May 2025 is Mason Alexander-Hawk, a research assistant for the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and doctoral student in the Urban Regional Sciences Program at Texas A&M University. She holds a master’s in public service and administration from the Bush School of Government and Public Service and a bachelor’s in biology from Texas A&M International. Her areas of interest are nonprofit management, urban development and sustainability with a focus on how to build the capacity of marginalized communities using equitable planning practices. Alexander-Hawk’s current research focus is on how disaster recovery efforts are impacting affordable housing.

Mason’s dissertation topic focuses on Long Term Recovery Groups (LTRGs), a rare phenomenon in the nonprofit sector. LTRGs are either a single organization or a network of organizations meant to provide a coordinated approach to determine and address the unmet needs of disaster survivors. Aside from the article Mason co-authored, there is currently limited published research on these groups and no formal, maintained, and up-to-date database of active groups. Her research is a part of a larger NSF-funded project and will contribute to the understanding of nonprofit organizations in disaster recovery as well as how these entities are emerging and collaborating. The goal is to understand these organizations’ effectiveness in fulfilling communities’ unmet needs.

Mason has been a proud Bill Anderson Fund (BAF) Fellow since 2020, when she served on the BAF Student Council Executive Committee and was an active member of the Fundraising Committee. Her work with the Fund reflects her passion for equity, community resilience, and inclusive leadership in disaster and emergency management.

Before joining the Bush School, Mason spent two years working at a local nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. There, she focused on building strong, supportive relationships with youth facing barriers, using mentorship as a tool for empowerment and connection. In the summer of 2019, she was selected as a Hatfield Fellow and placed at Metro, Portland’s regional government agency. As part of a cross-functional team of content strategists, editors, and community engagement experts, Mason helped develop a style guide for inclusive content. The goal was to ensure that the words used across Metro’s websites, social media, materials, and signage were truly welcoming—especially to communities of color and others who have been historically marginalized.

Mason is passionate about improving spaces and expanding opportunities for marginalized communities, with a focus on equity and resilience at the heart of her work. After graduation, she hopes to return to the public sector to continue driving systems-level change in hopes of revitalizing communities and improving housing stability for those who need it most.