Robert J. Sampson is the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, where he also held the Henry Ford II Professorship of the Social Sciences from 2003 to 2022. A member of the Department of Sociology, his research specializations include crime and criminal justice, neighborhood effects, the life course and social change, collective civic engagement, inequality, and urban social structure. Sampson earned a Ph.D. in 1983 and M.A. in 1979 from the State University of New York at Albany, and a B.A. in 1977 from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has held honorary degrees from Harvard University (A.M., 2003) and Utrecht University (Doctor Honoris Causa, 2016). Prior to Harvard, he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago (1991–2003), serving as Lucy Flower Professor in Urban Sociology (1997–2001) and Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor (2001–2002), and at the University of Illinois (1984–1991). He previously served as Chair of Harvard's Department of Sociology (2005–2010) and Director of the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute (2009–2014).

Sampson is Scientific Director of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods since 1994 and founding director of the Boston Area Research Initiative (2012–2015). He is an Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. His accolades include election to the National Academy of Sciences (2006), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005), American Philosophical Society (2011), and Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (2016). Other honors encompass the Stockholm Prize in Criminology (2011), Guggenheim Fellowship (2018–19), and presidency of the American Society of Criminology (2011–12). Key publications feature Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (University of Chicago Press, 2012; second edition, 2024), Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70 with John H. Laub (Harvard University Press, 2003), and Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life with John H. Laub (Harvard University Press, 1993). An upcoming book is Marked by Time: How Social Change Has Transformed Crime and the Life Trajectories of Young Americans (Harvard University Press, 2026). Sampson co-edits the Annual Review of Criminology and has shaped the fields of urban sociology and criminology through pioneering work on collective efficacy and neighborhood inequality.

Professional Email: rsampson@wjh.harvard.edu