Matthew Desmond is a sociologist and the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he is also the principal investigator of the Eviction Lab. Desmond was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2022.

Education

Desmond studied as an undergraduate at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, serving at the same time as a volunteer with

Habitat for Humanity Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or Habitat, is a US non-governmental, and nonprofit organization which was founded in 1976 by couple Millard and Linda Fuller. Habitat for Humanity is a Ch ...

in Tempe. In 2002, he graduated from ASU with a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

degree, ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' in communications and justice studies. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

.Bill Glauber
"'Genius grant' winner Matthew Desmond made in Madison, Milwaukee"
''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'', September. 30, 2015. He was formerly the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Honors

Desmond was awarded a Harvey Fellowship in 2006 and a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

in 2015. He won the 2017

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published duri ...

, the 2017 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, and the 2016

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City''. His 2017 Pulitzer Prize citation read, "For a deeply researched exposé that showed how mass

evictions Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee (often, the prior owners who defaulted on a mortgage ...

after the 2008 economic crash were less a consequence than a cause of poverty."The Pulitzer Prizes.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond (Crown)"

Works

* *Emirbayer, Mustafa and Matthew Desmond (2009). ''Racial Domination, Racial Progress: The Sociology of Race in America''. New York: McGraw-Hill. * *Desmond, Matthew (2016). ''Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City''. New York: Crown/Archetype, 2016. *Desmond, Matthew (2018). "Why Work Doesn't Work Anymore." ''New York Times Magazine'', p. 36, September 16, 2018. *Desmond, Matthew (2019). "American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation." ''New York Times Magazine'', 2019 (part of

The 1619 Project The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism endeavor developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from ''The New York Times'', and ''The New York Times Magazine'' which "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery an ...

). *Desmond, Matthew (2021), "Capitalism", chapter in '' The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story''. *Desmond, Matthew (2023). ''Poverty, by America''. New York: Crown, 2023.

References

External links

Official page of "Evicted"
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Desmond, Matthew American sociologists Urban theorists Living people MacArthur Fellows Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners Arizona State University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Harvard University faculty Princeton University faculty American male non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) 1970s births Members of the American Philosophical Society