Derek Hyra

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 the co-editor of Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC (Routledge 2016) and author of  The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville  (University of Chicago Press 2008) and Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City  (University of Chicago Press 2017). His fourth book,  Slow and Sudden Violence: Why and When Uprisings Occur (University of California Press 2024) will be released August 5. 

 

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 has 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 currently serves as the President of the Eastern Sociological Society, member of the City of Falls Church (Virginia) Planning Commission, Editorial Advisory Board Member of Housing Policy Debate, and External Advisory Board Member of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities. He also co-edits 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. 

​

You can listen to Prof. Hyra discuss some of his research here: https://www.derekhyra.com/video-archive.