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Approximately 9.3 million United States students attend rural schools and one in every five U.S. citizens lives in a rural community.  Yahn鈥檚 current work examines: 1) the impact rural industries (e.g. resource extraction, farming, manufacturing) have on school funding and community capitals, 2) societal issues relevant to rural schools and communities, and 3) the theory and practice of community and career connected learning (CCCL) in rural schools.

Yahn is the  2022-23 recipient of the OHIO University Professor Award , an honor that recognizes teaching excellence. In 2019 Yahn was named a Global Teacher Education fellow with the Longview Foundation. She spent her fellowship exploring how to foster social responsibility and global competence amongst teacher-candidates seeking careers in rural schools. In 2017 Yahn won the Edward W. Chance Memorial Dissertation Award, an honor bestowed by the National Rural Education Association. Her dissertation research focused on Appalachian Ohio Schools that leased their oil and gas rights to make up for financial deficits. Yahn frequently speaks on rural schools and communities including an invitation to speak about poverty and rural education at 2018 Propel Ohio an event sponsored by Senator Sherrod Brown and as a 2022 keynote speaker at the 3rd Annual Community and Career Connected Learning Summit.

Yahn  partners with Building Bridges to Careers (BB2C) a 501c(3) based in Marietta, Ohio which provides programming that connects P-12 learners to Community and Career Connected Learning opportunities. This learning system integrates community partnerships and career awareness into experiential, place-based learning. It intentionally disrupts threats to the viability of rural communities and rural schools by forming connections between educational institutions and communities that build the social capital of participants engaged in this form of learning. Yahn鈥檚 BB2C partnership includes the OHIO Rural Teacher Fellowship Pilot and a research network.

Yahn teaches several courses in middle childhood education, reading instruction, and children and adolescent literature for the Department of Teacher Education and coordinates the Middle Childhood Education program for the Eastern Campus. She kicked off the Patton College Remote Teaching Series by sharing her work with using distance learning modalities to offer a variety of coursework to Regional Higher Education students.