Sudhir A. Venkatesh

Sudhir Venkatesh is a sociologist and ethnographer whose work focuses on the social and behavioral dimensions of digital technologies, including platform governance and trust and safety operations. His prior research spans urban poverty, violence, and community organization, alongside ethnographies of advertising agencies, hedge funds, and government institutions. He currently teaches courses on the tech sector and leads a popular undergraduate initiative focusing on the challenges of establishing a human settlement on Mars.

He has held his named professorship at Columbia since 1999. Other appointments include Head of Integrity Research at Facebook, Director of the Social Innovation Hub at Twitter, and Senior Advisor to the Office of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He was elected a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a recipient of the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award.

MA, Mathematics, UC San Diego, 1988

Ph.D University of Chicago, Sociology 1997

Junior Fellowship, Society of Fellows, Harvard University.

TECHNOLOGY

Co-Editor. “Digital Platform Governance.”The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2026.
The Myths of Platform Governance: How Tech Works to Create Online Trust and Safety.
Working with Platforms. (Forthcoming in the Stanford Social Innovation Review)
We are all Tech Builders. The Notebook. Yale University Press.

Thinking Small: Remaining Creative in a World of Big Data. Fast Company.

How to Use Conflict to Unlock Creativity. Fast Company.

The Science of Awards. Fast Company.

The Myth of Advertising and the Art of Legitimacy. Public Culture. 2015.

HOUSING

American Project: The Rise and Fall of an Urban Ghetto. Harvard University Press.

 “Growing Up in the Projects: The Economic Lives of a Cohort of Men who Came of Age in Chicago Public Housing.” (w/ Steven D. Levitt) American Economic Review (May 2001).

UNDERGROUND ECONOMIES

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor. Harvard University Press.

"The Financial Activities of an Urban Street Gang" (with Steven D. Levitt). Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2000 (August). Volume 115(3): 755-789. 

Gang Leader for a Day. Penguin Press.

Floating City. Penguin Press.

"’Are We a Family or a Business?’ History and Disjuncture in the Urban American Street Gang" (w/ Steven D. Levitt). Theory and Society 29: 427-462 (Autumn 2000).

POPULAR WRITING & FILM

Writings and stories have appeared in The New York TImes, This American Life, Fresh Air, The American Prospect, the Washington Post and National Public Radio. 

Dislocation documentary film (appearing on PBS)

At the Top of My Voice documentary film.

Abhidya (scripted film).

Best Book awards from The Economist,

Best Book from Slate.Com, 

NSF CAREER award winner in 2001. 

C. Wright Mills Book Award. 2007.

Best Documentary Series Award for “Transformation: The State and Future of Chicago Public Houisng,” Associated Press. 2002.