The Ken Haas Outstanding Alumni Award is given each year to a graduate of the Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice who has made major contributions to their profession or their community. The award honors Professor Haas’s five-decade commitment to education and the promotion of public service among our students. The recipient may have earned either an undergraduate or graduate degree from the program and either may be an individual of already considerable accomplishment or a more recent graduate who shows great promise.

Susan Miller, Internal Advisory Board member of the center and professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, gave a few heartfelt words as Katrina was given her award: 

Ken is retired but his commitment to teaching and the promotion of public service is exemplary. Katrina Manierre, Kat, graduated with Honors in 2013 with double majors in Women & Gender Studies and Sociology, and earned a Domestic Violence Prevention and Services Concentration. I was lucky enough to have her in my undergraduate classes and to watch her professional career from afar; she has devoted her career to public service and educational programming for youth. First starting in Delaware at the SAFE program of People’s Place, with an internship helping assist DV victims in establishing financial and residential stability – the shelter was more than an hour down the road from here, so Kat stayed overnight in the shelter on a couch since she didn’t have a car and busses didn’t travel that late at night. Classic Kat – her grit and determination is well-remembered! Kat continued this work with DV and sexual assault victims/survivors in upstate New York, helping clients negotiate the civil and criminal justice systems and using trauma-informed, client-centered, strengths-based advocacy. Her current work now integrates a public health component, where she works with sexual health educators and school districts in multiple counties in New York  to provide comprehensive adolescent pregnancy prevention and other sexual health education programming. Kat truly shines with her devotion to victims/survivors, developing evidence-based sexual health education, and violence prevention work. We are very proud that our department played a role in shaping your commitment to public service, and we are so proud of all of your accomplishments. Congratulations!

We at the center are so proud of Katrina and all of her accomplishments!​