Ryan C. Hankins
Executive Director, Ph.D.
Ryan Hankins is the Executive Director of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA). PARCA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, non-ideological research organization providing policy research, data analysis, and program evaluation to educate the public and equip the leaders of governments, schools, and nonprofits to improve the lives of all Alabamians.
In addition to providing overall leadership to PARCA, Hankins has conducted or led numerous research projects, including analyses of regional demographics, school finances, gambling revenue, and Medicaid expansion.
He is active in local and statewide nonprofit work and serves on numerous boards and committees, including the advisory boards for the Masters of Public Administration at Auburn University and both the Masters of Social Work and Department of Human Development and Family Science at Samford University. He has previously served on the board of the Alabama Association of Nonprofits, the Birmingham—Jefferson Food Policy Council, the Medicaid Citizens’ Advisory Board, the Bold Goals Workforce Development Council, the Executive Team of the Alabama Committee for Grade-Level Reading, the Alabama Counts! 2020 Census Committee, the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham, and is past president of the Alabama Association of Free Clinics.
He is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management Executive Education program, the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute, Leadership Birmingham, Leadership Alabama, and a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 Honoree.
Hankins holds a BA in religion and English literature, a Master of Divinity, and a Ph.D. in political science. He has completed additional studies at the University of Alabama Birmingham and Oxford University.
He and his wife, Meredith, a speech-language pathologist at United Ability, are the parents of three children.
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Updated August 2024