Katherine Newman

Katherine S. Newman is a distinguished sociologist who served as the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University from 2010 to 2014. During her leadership, she significantly expanded the faculty, enhanced support for faculty development, integrated the arts more prominently into the undergraduate curriculum, and strengthened ties with the Maryland Institute College of Art. Notable achievements include spearheading the renovation of the historic Parkway Theatre in Baltimore's Station North arts district, opening new Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories, launching the Provost's Gateway Sciences Initiative for innovative teaching, establishing the Dean's Undergraduate Research Awards to promote student scholarship, and contributing to the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships and the Institute for the American City.

She holds a B.A. in sociology and philosophy from the University of California, San Diego (1975) and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley (1979). Newman's career spans prestigious institutions: 16 years as Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, Lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law, various roles at Harvard including Founding Dean of Social Science at the Radcliffe Institute and Malcolm Wiener Professor of Urban Studies, and Forbes Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton, where she directed the Institute for International and Regional Studies. Her research focuses on urban poverty, the working poor, economic mobility, school shootings, globalization's effects on youth, and the impact of regressive taxes on low-income populations. Key publications include No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City (1999), Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (2004), Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market (2006), The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition (2012), Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged (2011), and Downhill from Here: Retirement Insecurity in the Age of Inequality (2019). With over 15,000 Google Scholar citations, her scholarship has profoundly shaped understandings of inequality and social policy.