John R. Hipp

Professor John R. Hipp is a multi-departmental faculty member at the University of California Irvine's School of Social Ecology, holding appointments in Criminology, Law and Society; Urban Planning and Public Policy; and Sociology. With a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he co-directs the Irvine Lab for the Study of Space and Crime (ILSSC) with Charis Kubrin and leads the Metropolitan Futures Initiative (MFI), an interdisciplinary project analyzing Southern California's socioeconomic landscape.

• Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

His research focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of crime, integrating social network analysis with neighborhood sociology. Key interests include spatial modeling, collective efficacy, and the interplay between built environments and criminal activity. Current work examines how the spatial distribution of social ties affects urban safety and the application of machine learning to crime pattern analysis.

Recent publications analyze pandemic-era crime patterns, neighborhood social capital during transitions, and business mobility's impact on urban crime. His 2023 book The Spatial Scale of Crime received the James Short Senior Scholar Award.

• 2023 James Short Senior Scholar Award

Professor Hipp has mentored numerous students now in academic positions nationwide, including Xiaoshuang Iris Luo at Akron University, Seth Williams at Louisiana State, and Young-An Kim at Florida State. His NSF-funded work with Carter Butts explores network structure's impact on adolescent substance use.