Robert Francis (Bob) is a doctoral student in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and affiliate of the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab. His research interests include U.S. poverty and inequality, social policy, and rural communities.

Currently, his primary project involves an examination of work and non-work among prime-age, working-class men in rural America.

He was a 2015 University of Pennsylvania Summer Institute on Inequality Pre-Dissertation Fellow. His work has been awarded by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and appeared in the edited volume Faith and Race in American Political Life.

Before coming to Hopkins, Bob spent seven years doing advocacy and policy work in Washington, DC for several national faith-based organizations: Sojourners, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Lutheran Services in America. He also spent many years in Chicago, where he worked as a junior high and high school teacher, case manager, and server of Chicago-style pizza.

Bob holds a B.A. in Sociology and Theological Studies from Wheaton College (IL) and an M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago. Bob is a compulsive list maker, a proud resident of Steeler Nation, and an (occasionally) avid runner.