Odis Johnson Jr. is a leader in national conversations on the complex intersections of residential stratification, the relative status of African Americans, and social policy, including educational, housing, and policing policies. This work is of utmost importance for increasing the possibilities of evidence-based social reform.

Johnson’s research examines how youth development, the status of African American populations, and social inequality are impacted by neighborhoods, schools, and public policies. He investigates how policies have sought to influence neighborhood differences in school functioning and achievement, and of the policy and residential dynamics related to the status of African American men in particular. In addition to his Fatal Interactions with Police Study (FIPS), Johnson has analyzed neighborhood risk using advanced statistical methodologies, and examined how strategies for maintaining law and order impact the representation of racial groups in the school-to-prison pipeline. He is the architect of the Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational and Mixed Methodologies, a National Science Foundation effort to advance equity in data science.

Johnson joined Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in 2021 from Washington University in St. Louis.