Profile of Robert J. Sampson
- Melissa Marino, Science Writer
The patterns and dynamics of social life have intrigued Robert Sampson since his childhood. “One of my earliest memories as a kid is flipping through National Geographic magazines and being mesmerized by maps: maps of the world, the connections and social patterning of life, and its variability across the globe,” he recalls. “I was taken by that and puzzled by it.”
Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and chair of the sociology department at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), has built his career on studying social patterns, formulating influential sociological theory, and developing methods to study the complex social networks of neighborhoods and cities. For his work on the origins of crime and violence and on the influence of neighborhoods on the life course, Sampson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006.
In his Inaugural Article in this issue of PNAS, Sampson examines how growing up in severely disadvantaged neighborhoods affects verbal ability in black children (1).
Life and Crime in the City
Growing up in the small, industrial city of Utica, NY, in the 1960s, Sampson witnessed firsthand the changing patterns within his city. Utica is “a microcosm of the changes that have gone on in some of the larger, more famous cities in the United States,” he says. Once a bustling city, his hometown was hit with hard times as industries left and almost half of the town's population went with them.
“I witnessed those changes growing up and was fascinated—why are some communities declining and people leaving, and why are others thriving?” he asks.
From a young age, Sampson was a keen observer of community and city life. The self-described “upstate New York kid” did not stray far from home for college or graduate school, choosing to attend the State University of New York (SUNY). As …
