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David Jonathan Knight is an Assistant Professor of Sociology (beginning July 2024) and Faculty Research Fellow in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies/Institute for Research on African American Studies at Columbia University in New York City. Broadly speaking, David is interested in how political change and racial health (in)equities unfold in contexts of historical exclusion and marginalization. His current scholarly and publicly engaged research focuses on how impacted communities—notably Black communities and incarcerated communities—negotiate, resist, and imagine a world beyond mass criminalization and imprisonment. His research has been funded by multiple foundations, including the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Originally from the New Orleans area, David received his bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth College and taught as a public school teacher in San Francisco and Boston before earning his doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago.
