Andrea Hagan

Andrea Hagan is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Criminology & Justice at Loyola University, New Orleans, and the founder of Pattern Hunters, LLC — a public scholarship platform operating at the intersection of community, academy, and institutional accountability in Louisiana.

A former social studies teacher with 13 years of K–12 experience and over 25 years embedded in Hip Hop culture as a writer, producer, and performer, she brings a perspective grounded in both scholarly rigor and direct community engagement. Her research interests include carceral systems and rhetoric, youth justice, pipelines to prison, deviant behavior and who gets labeled, HBCU investment as crime prevention infrastructure, and structural violence. Her master's thesis, From Victimization to Incarceration: Understanding the Abuse-to-Prison Pipeline for Black Girls, anchors her ongoing public scholarship in these areas.

Her published work appears in the Louisiana Illuminator, The Lens, and The Conversation, where she examines the structural patterns that shape who Louisiana's systems protect — and who they punish. In her courses, she draws on both her research and her teaching background to equip students to critically and compassionately examine complex social issues through multiple lenses, always seeking a deeper understanding and exploring pathways toward a more just future.