Torri D Hart
Ph.D. in Educational Policy & Planning, University of Texas at Austin, expected 2026
M.A. in English, George Mason University, 2019
B.A. in English, Secondary Education, Radford University, 2016
Email: torri.hart@austin.utexas.edu
View Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
M.A. in English, George Mason University, 2019
B.A. in English, Secondary Education, Radford University, 2016
Email: torri.hart@austin.utexas.edu
View Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Torri Danny Hart is a doctoral student in the Educational Policy and Planning program at The University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary Education from Radford University and a Master of Arts in English from George Mason University. Currently, Hart is a research associate for the Texas Education Leadership Lab.
Hart began her career as an eighth-grade English teacher in Southern Virginia where she became passionate about providing equitable educational resources and opportunities to students in rural spaces. After completing her first year of teaching, she moved to Northern Virginia where she completed her M.A. while working as a technical writer and secondary English teacher. She taught at the middle and high school levels, including collegiate composition courses, for six years before pursuing doctoral studies. Prior to beginning her work with UT, Hart served as a government-contracted Strategic Communications Analyst for the United States Coast Guard. Each position has contributed to her skillset as a Teaching and Research Assistant in Educational Leadership & Policy.
Her research aims to understand how leadership is distributed within rural schools to support students with disabilities. Hart explores leadership beyond formal roles to identify how the broader school-community often contributes to creating inclusive, equitable school environments, socially and instructionally. Through her work, Hart is driven to identify specific leadership practices across diverse rural spaces that educators use to ensure students with disabilities are welcomed, valued, and served in their schools. Using case study methods, her research prioritizes contextualization of each study to support educator preparedness for the complexities of educational leadership.
Hart is pursuing her doctorate in Educational Policy and Planning with the intention to contribute to the scholarship on inclusive leadership in rural schooling contexts with the aim to support education leadership programs through research and instruction in the future.
Hart began her career as an eighth-grade English teacher in Southern Virginia where she became passionate about providing equitable educational resources and opportunities to students in rural spaces. After completing her first year of teaching, she moved to Northern Virginia where she completed her M.A. while working as a technical writer and secondary English teacher. She taught at the middle and high school levels, including collegiate composition courses, for six years before pursuing doctoral studies. Prior to beginning her work with UT, Hart served as a government-contracted Strategic Communications Analyst for the United States Coast Guard. Each position has contributed to her skillset as a Teaching and Research Assistant in Educational Leadership & Policy.
Her research aims to understand how leadership is distributed within rural schools to support students with disabilities. Hart explores leadership beyond formal roles to identify how the broader school-community often contributes to creating inclusive, equitable school environments, socially and instructionally. Through her work, Hart is driven to identify specific leadership practices across diverse rural spaces that educators use to ensure students with disabilities are welcomed, valued, and served in their schools. Using case study methods, her research prioritizes contextualization of each study to support educator preparedness for the complexities of educational leadership.
Hart is pursuing her doctorate in Educational Policy and Planning with the intention to contribute to the scholarship on inclusive leadership in rural schooling contexts with the aim to support education leadership programs through research and instruction in the future.
