Rate My Professor Jacob Faber

Jacob William Faber is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Service at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, with a joint appointment in the Department of Sociology. He earned his PhD in Sociology from New York University in 2015, with a dissertation titled “In Foreclosure’s Wake: The Geography and Consequences of the Foreclosure Crisis.” He also holds an MA in Sociology from NYU in 2013, two Master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006—one in Technology and Policy and one in Urban Studies and Planning—and a BS in Management Science from MIT in 2004. Prior to his academic career, Faber worked as a Senior Researcher at the Center for Social Inclusion from 2006 to 2010. After completing his PhD, he served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University from 2015 to 2017. He joined NYU’s Wagner School as an Assistant Professor in 2015, advancing to Associated Faculty in Sociology in 2018-2019, and was promoted to Associate Professor in both Sociology and Public Service in 2020. He is also a co-founder and co-director of the Redlining Lab since 2023.

Faber’s research and teaching center on spatial inequality, employing observational and experimental methods to investigate mechanisms sorting individuals across space and how distributions by race and class interact with political, social, and ecological systems to sustain economic disparities. His work elucidates the causes and effects of segregation, emphasizing institutional actors like mortgage lenders, real estate agents, check cashing outlets, and police in perpetuating racial and spatial inequality via institutional marginalization. Notable publications include “We Built This: Consequences of New Deal Era Intervention in America's Racial Geography” (American Sociological Review, 2020), which received the 2022 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award from the ASA Sociology of Population Section and the 2021 Devah Pager Outstanding Article Award from the ASA Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility; “Segregation and the Cost of Money: Race, Poverty, and the Prevalence of Alternative Financial Institutions” (Social Forces, 2019), winner of the 2019 IPUMS Research Award; “Contemporary Echoes of Segregationist Policy: Spatial Marking and the Persistence of Inequality” (Urban Studies, 2021); and “Still Victimized in a Thousand Ways: Segregation as a Tool for Exploitation in the Twenty-First Century” (Annual Review of Sociology, 2024). Faber has garnered major awards such as NYU’s Making a Difference Award (2020), Professor of the Year at NYU Wagner (2018), and the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Research Prize (2018), along with grants from the National Science Foundation (2025-2027), Russell Sage Foundation (2023-2025, 2020-2021), and others. His scholarship has appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Demography, Housing Policy Debate, and other prominent journals.