Areas of research
Data-Driven Policy Analysis & Evidence-Based Practice
SP2’s Initiatives and Faculty use administrative data, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis to inform the future of social innovation and social policy.
Featured Centers
Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy
FEATURED FACULTY
Jacqueline Corcoran, PhD
Professor; PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1996. Mental health; clinical social work; evidence-based practice in social work; systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and meta-synthesis; strengths-based models.
FEATURED FACULTY
Dennis P. Culhane, PhD
Professor; PhD, Boston College, 1990. Homelessness; housing policy; policy analysis research methods.
FEATURED FACULTY
Millan AbiNader, LMSW, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Boston University. Gender-based violence; intimate partner violence; intimate partner homicide; rural communities; community-level risk; vicarious trauma.
FEATURED FACULTY
R. Jisung Park, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Harvard University. Environmental economics; labor economics; climate change; economic inequality; policy evaluation.
FEATURED FACULTY
DeMarcus A. Jenkins, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, University of California, Los Angeles. Education policy, housing policy, criminal/juvenile justice, school safety & discipline, gentrification, anti-Black racism, Critical Race Theory, social movements.
FEATURED FACULTY
Alice Xu, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Harvard University. Inequality and social policy, urban and distributive politics, environmental politics, quantitative and spatial methods, Latin America, Global South.
Related News
Faculty & Research
11/20
Two SAFELab researchers named to faculty of SP2
Dr. Aviv Landau and Dr. Siva Mathiyazhagan are being appointed research assistant professors at SP2. The two researchers have been affiliated with Penn since 2022, when they relocated to the University as members of SAFELab.
Faculty & Research
10/09
SP2’s Dr. Desmond Patton elected to National Academy of Medicine
SP2’s Dr. Desmond Upton Patton of is one of five Penn experts among the 100 new Academy members elected this year to one of the highest honors in health and medicine.
Faculty & Research
09/11
New Yorker highlights SP2’s Dr. Dennis Culhane in homelessness feature
The research of Professor Dennis Culhane, Dana and Andrew Stone Chair in Social Policy at SP2, is featured prominently in a New Yorker feature about modern homelessness written by Pulitzer Prize – winning author Jennifer Egan.