Richard P. Taub, esteemed sociologist who studied Chicago neighborhoods, 1937-2020

Richard P. Taub, a prolific and wide-ranging University of Chicago sociologist who dedicated his career to studying urban economic development and public policy, especially in Chicago neighborhoods, died Aug. He was 83. The Paul Klapper Professor Emeritus in the Social Sciences, the Department of Comparative Human Development and the Department of Sociology, Taub studied economic development, entrepreneurship, community development, poverty and public policy for five decades at UChicago. He also founded the undergraduate public policy major in the 1970s and chaired it for 35 years. "Some people are born to be leaders, and Richard Taub was one of them," said Richard Shweder, the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Comparative Human Development and Taub's friend of more than 50 years. "His candor, compassion, decency, commitment to students, dedication to interdisciplinary scholarship, entrepreneurial talents and ability to transcend factional differences made him beloved to his colleagues and the department's natural leader." Born in Brooklyn, New York on April 16, 1937, Taub earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1959, then went on to Harvard University, where he earned his MA in 1962 and PhD in 1966. At Harvard, he was mentored by sociologist Alex Inkeles and anthropologist Cora Du Bois, who encouraged him to go to India, where he did his first field research.