Douglas Harper is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA. He is also Co-Director of the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy. His principal policy interests concern urban housing and homelessness, and agricultural policy relating to family and factory farms. Harper has held full time and visiting appointments in Sociology Departments at the University of South Florida, the State University of New York, Cornell University, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Bologna, Italy. He has been Chair of Sociology Departments at the University of South Florida and the State University of New York, Potsdam.
He recieved his B.A., in Anthropology and Political Science, 1970, at Macalester College; St. Paul, Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in Sociology, 1976, at Brandeis University in Boston MA.