Paul Joseph Draus

Paul Draus is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and currently serves as Faculty Director of the University of Michigan Detroit Center. He earned his PhD from Loyola University Chicago in 2001. From 1992 until 2000 he was a public health field worker, specializing in tuberculosis control, first in New York City and then in Chicago. He is the author of Consumed in the City: Observing Tuberculosis at Century's End (Temple University Press, 2004) and the forthcoming Forging Identity: The Story of Carlos Nielbock's Detroit (Michigan State University Press, 2025) with artist Carlos Nielbock. He has published more than twenty articles and book chapters on topics ranging from substance abuse and street sex work to prison education and urban agriculture. His most recent work focuses on expanding access to natural environments in cities as a form of spatial restorative justice or “green reparations.”