Dr. McGhee Hassrick is an associate professor with the Life Course Outcomes Research Program at the A. J. Drexel Autism Institute. She received her masters and doctoral degrees in Sociology from the University of Chicago and a masters in Education from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Before her career as an academic researcher, she was a classroom teacher for 10 years in public and private schools in the United States and abroad. She has held faculty research positions at the University of Chicago and Weill Cornell Medical College. Her research, investigating collaboration networks across home and school settings, has been published in peer review journals and funded by federal grants from the Health Resource and Services Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Mental Health and the Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education.

Dr. McGhee Hassrick is currently investigating social network interventions that promote positive outcomes for people on the autism spectrum, their families and communities. Her research tracks the interactional and organizational dynamics that sustain or disrupt networks of diverse expertise that shape the ongoing support of people on the autism spectrum. Using dynamic social network analysis, coupled with sensory and qualitative data collection, she maps how parents, extended family members, community providers, clinicians and teachers of different social classes and racial groups learn from one another about how to manage a particular person's autism supports. She is particularly interested in how differently configured districts, schools and clinics shape inequalities in services for youth on the autism spectrum. Dr. McGhee Hassrick is currently conceptualizing, adapting and pilot testing digital, sensory and face to face social network interventions that track and intervene on cooperative infrastructures across home, school and clinical settings for youth on the autism spectrum.