Derek Hyra

Adivitional Positions at AU

Founding Director, Metropolitan Policy Center

Bio

Derek Hyra is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. His research focuses on processes of neighborhood change, with an emphasis on housing, urban politics, and race. Dr. Hyra is the co-editor of Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC (Routledge 2016) and author of The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville (University of Chicago Press 2008). His third book, Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City (University of Chicago Press 2017), is an ethnographic investigation of the redevelopment of Washington, DC’s Shaw/U Street neighborhood. He is currently working on his fourth manuscript, Roots of the Riots. Dr. Hyra’s research has been showcased in both academic journals, such as Housing Policy Debate, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies, and popular media outlets, including the British Broadcasting Corporation, Chicago Public Radio, C-SPAN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He has also received several important grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Dr. Hyra strongly believes in public service. He has served as board chair of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority, as an Alexandria Planning Commissioner, and as an Obama appointee on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities. He was also a U.S. Congressional candidate in Northern Virginia in 2014. He received his B.A. from Colgate University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.