Akram Al-Turk joined the Moritz Center for Societal Impact at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin in September 2024. His research focuses on housing insecurity (including homelessness) and how it is affected by and affects people’s health and well-being. Currently, he is focused on research projects that better our understanding of the multi-faceted reasons that people become housing insecure and the effects that homeless service programs have on the housing stability and health outcomes of people experiencing homelessness.
Before coming to the Moritz Center, Akram was the Senior Director of Research and Public Policy at the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, an organization that focuses on homelessness in Travis County. In that capacity, he and the research team he oversaw published reports and dashboards that focused on homelessness in Austin and Travis County. He also worked closely with service providers, policymakers, and other community partners and conducted community-based research—including projects focused on health equity and the barriers to access to homeless services that some people face.
Akram also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT-Austin. Before pursuing his doctorate, he worked as a researcher and publications manager at the Brookings Institution. He also served as a program officer at the International Budget Partnership, then part of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Akram earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master’s in Global Policy Studies from the LBJ School.