Gwyn Burns
Facility Manager and Assistant XC and Track Coach
Gwyn Burns is the assistant coach for cross country and track and field at Hampshire College, specializing in coaching middle distance and distance runners. Coach Burns graduated from Hampshire College in 2020, was a founding member of the track and field team, and competed on the soccer and cross country teams. Coach Burns’s passion and love for sport prompted her to write her Div. III project on the role Title IX had on the advancement of women in sports in a paper titled: A Competition She Cannot Win: A Study of Gender in Sports.”
Prior to working at Hampshire, Coach Burns obtained a master's degree in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University, focusing on sport and how to make sport more inclusive for athletes. Her graduate career culminated in a master thesis titled: “A Critical Analysis of High School Transgender Athlete Policies,” analyzing the impact of exclusionary policy language on trans youth in sport. The inclusion of transgender athletes into sport consistent with their gender identity is a topic that Burns is passionate about.
Since graduating from Hampshire in 2020, coach Burns has competed in numerous trail and road races including the Seven Sisters Trail Race in 2023 and 2024. When coach Burns isn’t coaching, she can often be found on local trails, or reading a good book.