Robin Bartram is a sociologist with interests in housing inequality; environmental justice; municipal regulations; and gender, race, and class. Overall, her work investigates the role of material conditions of housing, and how cities and organizations determine what constitutes decent housing.
Her book, Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality (The University of Chicago Press, 2022), shows how Chicago building inspectors make decisions about whom to cite for violations and how their decisions matter for racial and economic justice. She is currently working on a second book project, which investigates the overlap between the climate crisis, aging housing stock, and legacies of discrimination in New Orleans and Chicago. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, City & Community, Housing Policy Debate, and Law and Social Inquiry.
Bartram completed a BA in social anthropology and Russian from Sussex University, United Kingdom. She earned an MA in sociology from Loyola University Chicago and an MA and PhD in sociology from Northwestern University. She is also currently an affiliated scholar with the American Bar Association.
