Gerard Torrats-Espinosa joined the Department of Sociology at Columbia University as an Assistant Professor in 2020 after being a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Data Science Institute and in Sociology.

His research draws from the literatures on urban sociology, stratification, and criminology, and it focuses on understanding how the spatial organization of the American stratification system creates and reproduces inequalities. His current research agenda investigates how the neighborhood context, particularly the experience of community violence, determines the life chances of children; how social capital and social organization emerge and evolve in spatial contexts; and how place and geography structure educational and economic opportunity in America and elsewhere.

His work has been published in numerous academic journals, including the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Urban Economics, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gerard holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University.