Jeffrey Morenoff

Core faculty

Jeffrey D. Morenoff

Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement, Professor of Public Policy and Sociology

Morenoff's research interests include neighborhood environments, inequality, crime and criminal justice, the social determinants of health, racial/ethnic/immigrant disparities in health and antisocial behavior, and methods for analyzing multilevel and spatial data.

State & Hill

Last Word: Jeffrey Morenoff

May 7, 2026

This winter, 12 students stepped into paid consulting roles, working on three projects that support local governments in Michigan and beyond. Morenoff shares what the pilot initiative means for government partners and student professional development...

Policy Matters

Learning by doing: An inside look at the Strategic Consulting course

Feb 2, 2026

Chiante Hamilton (MPA '26) recounts her experience in the Strategic Consulting course and how she was able to give back to her community

State & Hill

DMACS marks 10 years of listening to Detroiters for shared impact

Dec 8, 2025

The Detroit Metro Area Communities Study (DMACS) celebrates 10 years of amplifying Detroiters’ voices—over 5,000 participants have helped shape conversations, drive investments, and inspire change.

Street with Detroit skyline in the background

In the Media

Detroiters' optimism tied to liklihood of voting

Nov 3, 2025 Detroit Metro Times

Detroiters who believe the city is moving in the right direction are far more likely to vote in next week’s mayoral election than those who say it’s on the wrong track, according the most recent installment of the The Detroit Metro Area Communities S...

Publication

U-M survey finds link between Detroiters’ intention to vote, optimism about the city

Oct 28, 2025

Detroiters who view the city as headed in the right direction are more likely to vote in the Nov. 4 election than those who think the city is on the wrong track, according to a survey from the University of Michigan’s Detroit Metro Area Communities S...

News

Morenoff calls for Michigan state prison reform

Mar 23, 2025

The Ford School's Jeff Morenoff advocated for legislation that would reduce long sentences for incarcerated people in Michigan. In an opinion piece published in the Detroit Free Press, Morenoff explained that Michigan's average prison sentence length...

News

Poverty Solutions report on Detroit home wealth lauded by Mayor Duggan

Mar 21, 2025

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan promoted a Poverty Solutions study which shows that Detroit homeowners’ home wealth rose by $700M in 2023. At a well-attended news conference in Detroit, Duggan highlighted that Detroit homeowner occupants gained nearly a 10...

News

Former Chicago mayor to return to U-M as visiting professor, joining past NYC leader in residence

Jul 11, 2024

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is joining the University of Michigan as a visiting professor, adding more mayoral expertise to the faculty in an effort to encourage and equip students for careers in public service and policy. Lightfoot will join...

State & Hill

Faculty news, spring 2024

Apr 24, 2024

Kamissa Camara chaired the Bipartisan Senior Study Group for the Sahel at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The study group’s comprehensive report critically assesses opportunities for peace, security, and economic development in the Sahel. Charlotte Cava...

(Top row, left to right) Fullerton Rico, Hills, Holz, Jacob, and Leiser (Bottom row, left to right) Morenoff, Raimi, Shipan, Spencer, and Stevenson

News

UM study: Detroit’s Black homeowners gained nearly $3B in real estate wealth from 2014-22

Apr 16, 2024

University of Michigan Poverty Solutions study released today shows Detroit’s Black homeowners gained $2.8 billion in home valueStudy based on 9 years or recorded home sales dataNeighborhoods with highest poverty and lowest home values in 2014 saw th...

State & Hill

Snapshot: Associate Dean Jeffrey Morenoff

Dec 12, 2023

Sociologist Jeffrey Morenoff, associate dean for research and policy engagement Focus: neighborhood environments, crime and criminal justice, the social determinants of health, racial/ethnic/immigrant inequality, and methods for analyzing multilev...

In the Media

Morenhoff: Detroit census undercount is "egregious"

May 18, 2023 The Detroit News

Jeffrey Morenhoff, The Detroit News: Researcher Jeffrey Morenoff, a professor of sociology at UM and a faculty affiliate of the U-M Population Studies Center, was one of the researchers who originally studied the potential undercount and called it "e...

News

Morenoff Senate testimony highlights discrepancies in 2020 Detroit Census

Jul 26, 2022

The results of the 2020 Census have generated debate across the country, but perhaps nowhere as intensely as in Detroit. Michigan’s largest city, which has an overwhelming majority of African American and Hispanic residents combined of 85%, may have ...

Jeffrey Morenoff testifying to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

News

Morneoff: Mix of factors contributed to census undercount in Detroit

Apr 6, 2022

Detroit is the largest American city to officially challenge its 2020 Census count. One of its pieces of evidence is a survey done by the Detroit Metroopolitan Ares Communities Study supporting its claims that the city’s population was undercounted. ...

News

Detroit parents less likely to vaccinate themselves than non-parents, leads to low youth vaccination rates

Mar 9, 2022

Just under half (49%) of Detroit parents and guardians of children under 18 reported at the end of 2021 that they had been vaccinated against COVID-19, compared to 75% of adults who do not live with children. These relatively low vaccination rat...

A nurse administers the COVID-19 vaccine to a teacher in Iowa (Credit: Phil Roeder / CC BY)

News

Application deadline nears for inaugural racial justice reading circles

Feb 7, 2022

In an effort to expand the ways in which the university community approaches discussion of racial equity, the Center for Racial Justice has established two reading circles for the winter 2022 term. The reading circles are open to graduate students, f...

News

Ford School faculty named among “Top 2% Scientists”

Jan 26, 2022

Stanford University named 16 Ford School faculty on their “Top 2% Scientists” list, representing the most-cited scientists with career and single-year impact in various disciplines. The faculty researchers join over 180,000 scientists worldwide. ...

Publication

2020 Census undercounted population in select Detroit neighborhoods by 8%

Dec 17, 2021

Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan joined Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and researchers from Wayne State University today to present findings from a new report that suggests the 2020 U.S. Census may have significantly undercounted Detroit’s ...

Photo of homes in Detroit's Chaldean Town neighborhood

News

Community in crisis: Black churches expand services

Nov 2, 2021

Jean Sherman got a call from a friend during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic telling her about a church nearby where she could get the vaccine. The Detroit resident also found out that the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church helped people wi...

Publication

Majority of Detroiters want police reform, many also want increased police presence

Sep 20, 2021

Competing concerns about police brutality and high crime rates are reflected in Detroiters' attitudes toward the police, according to University of Michigan research. A recent U-M survey finds that about 6 in 10 adult Detroit residents believe p...

In the Media

Concerns over vaccine side effects driving hesitancy in Detroit, says Morenoff

Sep 15, 2021 Detroit Free Press

As the school year gets started, many are saying high vaccination rates are key to keeping schools in person. Jeffrey Morenoff, professor of public policy and sociology and director of the Population Studies Center, explained what may be affecting va...

News

Low vaccination rates persist in Detroit households with children

Aug 20, 2021

With a new school year three weeks away and cases of COVID-19 on the rise again, vaccination rates in the households of school-age children will play an important role in how school districts weigh their options for returning to the classroom. A...

News

Concern about safety is main reason many Detroiters are not getting vaccinated, U-M survey finds

Jul 22, 2021

About half of adults living in Detroit are not yet fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data just released from a University of Michigan survey. Among Detroiters who have not received any doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, nearly 8 out of...

News

More Detroiters ‘very likely’ to get COVID-19 vaccine than 4 months ago, U-M survey finds

Mar 30, 2021 University of Michigan Poverty Solutions

Thirty-eight percent of Detroiters now say they are “very likely” to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available, up from 14% who gave that response in the fall of 2020, according to a new survey from the University of Michigan. At the sa...

a Michigan Medicine official draws COVID vaccine serum into a needle

News

Ford School involvement highlighted among growing U-M Detroit partnerships

Mar 8, 2021

The University of Michigan ramped up its collaborations on a multitude of projects in the city of Detroit during the pandemic, including outreach to residents on issues ranging from unemployment to the COVID-19 vaccine. Initiatives such as Povert...

In the Media

Gerber and Morenoff seek to understand vaccine hesitancy in Detroit

Jan 25, 2021 Model D

"It really jumped out that for people of color in general, and Blacks specifically, how important it is to get a [vaccination] recommendation from a health care provider or government health officials," said Jeffrey Morenoff, commenting on findings f...

State & Hill

Faculty News fall 2020

Dec 9, 2020

Javed Ali organized a panel for New America on domestic terrorism. His new podcast, The Burn Bag, produced with two Ford School alumni, A'ndre Gonawela (BA ‘19) and Ryan Rosenthal (BA ‘19), has featured U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, General David Paetr...

News

Majority of Detroiters say they’re unlikely to get COVID-19 vaccine, U-M survey says

Nov 23, 2020

Sixty-one percent of Detroiters say they are somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to get a government-approved COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available, according to the latest survey from the University of Michigan’s Detroit Metro Area Communities S...

News

Detroit unemployment rate drops, but 1 in 5 residents in financial trouble

Aug 13, 2020

More Detroiters have returned to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but many families continue to have difficulty affording basic necessities and worry more hardship is ahead. That's according to the latest representative survey of Detroiters from...