Barry Checkoway is a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Arthur Dunham Collegiate Professor of Social Work in U-M’s School of Social Work. His research and teaching emphasize community organization, community development, neighborhood development, community-based policy advocacy, participatory research, and evaluation. His projects and publications draw on work with grassroots groups, community agencies, and government programs in the South Bronx, Detroit, Mississippi Delta, and Central Appalachia, and in South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, with support from the World Health Organization, Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions. He also is a member of the SSW Community Organization Learning Community. Checkoway worked with the White House to launch AmeriCorps, then served as founding director of the Michigan Neighborhood AmeriCorps Program, Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, Michigan Youth and Community Program, and Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity.
He received his Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and his Master of Arts and PhD in history and urban affairs from the University of Pennsylvania.