Geoffrey Wodtke | Department of Sociology

Geoffrey Wodtke B.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007
M.A. University of Michigan, 2011
Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2014 Office: Social Sciences 425 Office hours: Office: SS 425 Office Number: 834-0335 Mondays 5:30-6:30 or by appointment Phone: 773-834-0335 Email Interests:

Inequality, poverty, and social mobility; social psychology; urban sociology; causal inference

Professor; Associate Director, Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility

Geoff Wodtke’s research is in the areas of urban poverty and neighborhood effects, group conflict and racial attitudes, class structure and income inequality, and methods of causal inference in observational research. He is currently working on several projects dealing with the impact of poverty on child development, class and racial disparities in exposure to environmental health hazards, and new methods for estimating causal effects with observational data. His previous work on these topics has been published in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Demography, and Sociological Methodology, among other outlets. Wodtke completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Michigan, where he also earned his MA in statistics.

Recent Research / Recent Publications

Books

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., and Xiang Zhou. Causal Mediation Analysis. Under advance contract with Cambridge University Press.

Journal Articles

Schachner, Jared and Geoffrey T. Wodtke. 2023. “Environmental Inequality and Disparities in School Readiness: The Role of Neurotoxic Lead.” Child Development 94:e308-e327.

Yeh, Catherine and Geoffrey T. Wodtke. 2023. “The Effects of Head Start on Low-income Mothers.” Socius 9:1:15.

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Ugur Yildirim, David J. Harding, and Felix Elwert. 2023. “Are Neighborhood Effects Explained by Differences in School Quality?” American Journal of Sociology 128:1472-1528.

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Kerry Ard, Clair Bullock, Kailey White, and Betsy Priem. 2022. “Concentrated Poverty, Ambient Air Pollution, and Child Cognitive Development.” Science Advances 8:1-19.

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Sagi Ramaj, and Jared Schachner. 2022. “Toxic Neighborhoods: The Effects of Concentrated Poverty and Environmental Lead Contamination on Early Childhood Development.” Demography 59:1275-1298.