MSU Social Scientists join forces to study homelessness at MSU

September 19, 2024 - Diane Huhn

Stephen Przybylinski, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences, and John Kuk, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University, were recently awarded funding from the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research through its 2024-25 Public Policy Grant program to study student homelessness. The study will survey student rates of homelessness and housing insecurity for Michigan State students, as well as examine factors leading to homelessness and housing insecurity. They will begin the study during the fall semester and plan to have a report and news brief to share during the spring term.

Dr. Przybylinski is an urban and political geographer broadly interested in the ways in which liberal-democracies both enable injustices and how such political systems mediate responses to injustices within their frameworks. Dr. Kuk’s primary research area examines how the housing rental market perpetuates residential segregation, how public policy reinforces racial and gender inequality, and how economic inequality deepens racial polarization. He is broadly interested in American politics, political behavior, race and ethnicity politics, urban politics, public policy, politics of inequality, voting rights, and computational social science.