Evicted (Desmond) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Raised—Winslow, Arizona,USA
• Education—B.A., Arizona State University; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Award; Pulitizer Prize
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts


Matthew Desmond is an American urban social scientist, author, and Harvard Associate Professor. He is also the 2015 recipient of the MacArthur "genius" Grant.

Raised in Winslow, Arizona, Desmond's father was a nondenominational minister while his mother worked at various jobs. The family lived on a tight budget, and during his college years, their home was repossessed by the bank.

Desmond earned two B.S. degrees from Arizona State University. It was during that time his family lost their home, and Desmond began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and socializing with homeless people in Tempe.

After graduating from Arizona State, Desmond headed to the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 2010. Moving farther eastward, Desmond became a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University (2010­–2013), and was eventually hired as associate professor by the school's Department of Sociology. He holds the department's John L. Loeb Chair.

Desmond achieved nationwide acclaim for his 2016 book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, in which he exposes the low end of the inner city real estate market, where evictions have become a highly profitable enterprise. Starting as a graduate student, Desmond spent eight years conducting fieldwork in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He followed the plight of eight families, eventually concluding that that eviction is a cause, rather than merely a symptom, of poverty.

Prior to Evicted, Desmond also published On the Fireline (2007), coauthored of Race in America (2015) and The Racial Order (2015), and edited the inaugural issue of RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, which focuses on severe poverty. (Adapted from New York Times and MacArthur Foundation articles. Retrieved 9/6/2016.)