Professor Robert Chaskin's research focuses on the conceptual foundations and principal strategies of contemporary community intervention in the context of urban poverty. He has written widely on the topics of neighborhood development, community capacity building, housing policy, and the dynamics of participatory planning and neighborhood governance, among other topics. His research focuses on social policy and community practice in two principal ways: through grounded investigations of particular social policies and interventions and through synthetic, cross-intervention analyses.
 
Rob leads international efforts for the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. He recently completed a study on the civic and political engagement of marginalized urban youth in Belfast, Dublin, and London, is currently conducting research on slum clearance and social housing policy in Mumbai, India, and is embarking on work focused on urbanization and migration in China through the Tripartite Collaboration for Advancing Social Work in China. Rob has also coordinated two annual educational exchange and training programs for the Crown Family School, one focused on urban poverty and community practice in Mumbai, and the other focused on urbanization and migration in China.

- originally published in UChicago Global Digest