Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg is the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in Social Science and Professor of Sociology at New York University, where he directs the Institute for Public Knowledge. He holds affiliated appointments at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, and the School of Global Public Health. Klinenberg earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2000, an M.A. in Sociology from Berkeley in 1997, and a B.A. in History and Philosophy from Brown University in 1993, magna cum laude. His academic career includes serving as Associate Professor of Sociology at NYU from 2005 to 2008, Assistant Professor at NYU from 2002 to 2005, and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University from 2000 to 2002. Additional roles encompass Director of Research for Rebuild by Design since 2013 and Editor of Public Culture from 2010 to 2015.

Klinenberg's research examines urban studies, climate change and the environment, risk and disaster, culture and media, cities, democracy, health, technology, and social policy. He is the author of Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (Crown, 2018), Modern Romance: An Investigation (with Aziz Ansari, Penguin Press, 2015), Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (Penguin Press, 2012), Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media (Metropolitan Books, 2007), and Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2002; second edition 2015). He edited Climate Change and the Future of Cities (Duke University Press, 2016) and co-edited Anti-Democracy in America: Truth, Power, and the Republic at Risk (Columbia University Press, 2019). His scholarship has garnered awards including the American Sociological Association Robert E. Park Book Award and the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for Heat Wave, fellowships at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2007-2008, 2016-2017), an American Council of Learned Societies Charles Ryskamp Fellowship (2004-2005), and grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, National Science Foundation, and Knight Foundation.

Professional Email: eric.klinenberg@nyu.edu