Jenny Trinitapoli
Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago
Faculty Director at the Center for Social Science Research, University of Chicago
Jenny Trinitapoli is a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, where she directs the Center for International Social Science Research. She received her B.A. from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. As a social demographer, Trinitapoli’s work focuses on the causes and consequences of population change globally, with a special focus on contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Her 2023 book An Epidemic of Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press) leverages ten years of survey data from the Tsogolo La Thanzi study to provide a new account of the HIV epidemic. Set in Balaka, Malawi, Trinitapoli shows how young adults negotiate relationships, sex, and childbearing with a severe AIDS epidemic swirling around them.