Robert J. Sampson

Robert J. Sampson is the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, and founding director of the Boston Area Research Initiative. Previously, he taught at the University of Chicago.  

Professor Sampson is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Society of Criminology, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and, as Corresponding Fellow, the British Academy.  Former President of the American Society of Criminology, he received the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.  

His research and teaching cover a variety of areas including crime and criminal justice, the life course and social change, neighborhood effects, collective civic engagement, inequality, and urban social structure. The author of three award-winning books and numerous articles, his last book, published by the University of Chicago Press, is Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (2nd edition, 2024). Great American City is based on the culmination of over a decade of research from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, which Sampson served as Scientific Director and which continues after 30 years.