Kasey Zapatka

Dr. Kasey Zapatka is a Postdoctoral Scholar and Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and affiliated with the Institute of Governmental Studies. His research focuses on urban inequality, housing affordability, gentrification, and neighborhood change, employing quantitative methods such as spatial econometrics and machine learning. He holds a PhD in Sociology from The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, with a dissertation on housing affordability's spatial and longitudinal dimensions.

Education:

• PhD in Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center (2023)
• MA in Sociology, Fordham University (2014)
• BA in Spanish Literature and Language, Point Loma Nazarene University (2010)

Research Interests:

Zapatka's work examines how housing policies and neighborhood dynamics shape socioeconomic disparities. Key topics include rent regulation's impact on affordability, gentrification's spillover effects, and immigrant integration in suburban areas. He has contributed to public-facing projects like the Housing Literacy website and collaborates on longitudinal eviction databases to study displacement.

Teaching:

He co-teaches a year-long graduate course on Computational Social Science, covering machine learning, causal inference, and data visualization in R/Python. Previously taught Sociological Statistics at CUNY and Hunter College.

Awards:

• Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy Fellow (2021-2022)
• Altman Dissertation Fellowship (2021-2022)
• Digital Publics Fellow (2017-2019)

Grants and Projects:

Developed a longitudinal eviction database with Tim Thomas to assess pandemic-era housing interventions. Collaborated on the Superdiversity project visualizing New York's demographic changes and co-authored influential studies on rent stabilization and gentrification sequences.