Sudhir Venkatesh

Sudhir Venkatesh is a sociologist, ethnographer, documentary filmmaker and author. Gang Leader for a Day, a Paramount film, is based on Venkatesh's book of the same name.Thaindian.com: Paramount Vantage Bags Rights to Sudhir Venkatesh Book (March 24, 2008)

Venkatesh spent six years (1989-1994) studying the Black Kings gang and the residents of the Robert Taylor Homes, a public housing project on the south side of ChicagoChicago Magazine: Sudhir Venkatesh Profile. He detailed his findings in several publications, including American Project (2000), the chapter "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" in Freakonomics and in his 2008 book, Gang Leader for a Day.

His 2006 Off the Books won the C. Wright Mills Award and was listed as a Top 10 book of 2006 by Slate.

Venkatesh serves as Director of the Center for Urban Research Policy and the Charles H. Revson Fellowship Program, both at Columbia University.

"Fear is probably three-quarters perception. I came from an upper-middle-class suburb. When I was thrust into a new environment, I wasn't really scared because I wasn't really sure what to notice. If you don't know that you're supposed to be scared, you just end up hanging out longer than you should, which is what I did. I kept thinking, It'll get better some day. And it didn't get better."[University of Chicago: Sudhir Venkatesh: Not Your Average Sociologist (March 2008)

• 1966: Born in Chennai (Madras), India

• 1971: Moves with his mother to upstate New York

• 1981: Moves with his family to Irvine, California

• 1988: Graduates from the University of California, San Diego, with a degree in mathematics

• 1989: Begins doing research in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project

• 1992: Graduates from the University of Chicago with a masters in sociology

• 1997: Graduates from the University of Chicago with PhD in sociology

• 1998: Appointed at Columbia University

• 2001: Harvard University Press publishes American Project

• 2005: Selected by a panel of alumni to be Director of the Charles Revson Fellowship

• 2005: Contributes chapter "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" to Freakonomics

• 2005: First documentary, Dislocation, airs on PBS

• 2008: Penguin Press publishes Gang Leader for a Day