John C. Finn, Ph.D.

Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology
Christopher Newport University

Dr. Finn holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University and is Associate Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology at Christopher Newport University. His research examines the enduring economic, environmental, and health impacts of racial segregation in the United States. For the past eight years, he has directed a mixed-methods project titled Living Apart: Geography of Segregation in the 21st Century, which combines oral history interviews, experimental photographic methods, and interactive mapping to trace how discriminatory 20th-century housing policies produced and sustain landscapes of profound racial, economic, environmental, and health inequality. Finn has published over 50 articles, book chapters, reports, and op-eds and has delivered more than 150 invited lectures across North America, Latin America, and Europe. Through a sustained practice of public scholarship, Finn collaborates with journalists, artists, activists, legal teams, and medical researchers to make geographic research accessible and actionable in the pursuit of racial, environmental, and health justice.