Derek Hyra is a professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy within the School of Public Affairs at American University. His research focuses on processes of neighborhood change, with an emphasis on housing, urban politics, and race. Dr. Hyra is author of Slow and Sudden Violence: Why and When Uprisings Occur (University of California Press, 2024), Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappucino City (University of Chicago Press 2017), and The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville (University of Chicago Press 2008). He is also co-editor of Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC (Routledge 2016).

Dr. Hyra’s research has been showcased in both academic journals, such as City & Community, Housing Policy Debate, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies, and popular media outlets, including the British Broadcasting Corporation, Chicago Public Radio, C-SPAN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He has also received several important grants from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He had been an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Academic Fellow, and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. In 2023, he received the Publicly Engaged Scholar Award from the American Sociological Association’s Community and Urban Sociology Section. In 2024, he received the Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award from the Urban Affairs Association.

Dr. Hyra strongly believes in professional and public service. He has served in several positions including board chair of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Alexandria (Virginia) Planning Commissioner, Obama appointee on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities, and chair of the American Sociological Association’s Community and Urban Sociology Section. He has also served as the President of the Eastern Sociological Society and member of the City of Falls Church (Virginia) Planning Commission. He currently serves as an Editorial Advisory Board Member of Housing Policy Debate, External Advisory Board Member of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, and co-editor of the PENN Press book series "Disrupting Urban Policy." He received his B.A. from Colgate University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Personal website:www.derekhyra.com

Twitter: @DerekHyra

Facebook: derek.hyra