Robert Ratner

Robert 'Bob' Ratner (born June 4, 1938) is a Professor Emeritus and List of sociologists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His teaching and research span the fields of medical sociology, critical criminology, Social movement|social movements, group interaction, aboriginal politics, political sociology, and genocide/reparations.
== Early life and education ==
Bob Ratner was born in Brooklyn, NYC on June 4, 1938. Ratner attended Lafayette High School (New York City) (in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn) and graduated second in a class of 1,000, obtaining scholarships to Columbia University and New York University. 
He attained his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Columbia University in 1959, and his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Yale University in 1963 and 1968, respectively.
== Professional career ==
Ratner began his career while still a Postgraduate education student at Yale, working as a research assistant for the Yale New Haven Hospital in its Emergency Room facility from 1964 to 1966, and as a research associate at the Yale Psychiatric Institute in 1964. He then worked as a Program Evaluator and Assistant Director of Adult Employment for Mobilization for Youth, a major anti-poverty agency in the lower east side of N.Y.C. from 1965 to 1967.
He joined the University of British Columbia in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in 1967 as an assistant professor and was promoted to full professor in 1994. He co-founded the Journal of Human Justice at the University of British Columbia, serving as editor of its inaugural issue in 1989.
During his academic career, Ratner received seven major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SHRCC) grants. In addition, he served as principal investigator for the United Native Nations organization, focusing on Indigenous child welfare and delinquency, for the Narcotic Addiction Foundation of British Columbia, and for the Spring Street delinquency diversion project sponsored by the Vancouver municipal government.
Since 2006, he has been an educational consultant for Alexander College, a local, private institution in Vancouver and Burnaby where he serves on the academic board and supervises the Sociology faculty.
Ratner officially retired in 2003 and became a Emeritus but returned to the department in 2013 and 2014 to teach a fourth-year Undergraduate education course in genocide and reparations.
== Awards and recognitions ==
He was chosen as a Visiting Fellow by the Cambridge School of Criminology, University of Cambridge, U.K. in 1990, and is a Life Member of the University’s Clare Hall.
In 1993, Ratner represented Canada at the Second International and Inter-Agency Forum on Culture and Development, a UNESCO conference held in Seoul, South Korea.
In 2002, he was selected to serve on the International Advisory Board to the Asia-Pacific Program on Cross-Cultural and Comparative Research on Dispute Resolution, serving alongside the Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court of Canada|Supreme Court.
== Scholarly contributions ==
* State Control: Criminal Justice Politics in Canada with John L. McMullan (1987)
* Challenges and Perils: Social Democracy in Neo-Liberal Times with William K. Carroll (2005)
* Informal Reckonings: Conflict Resolution in Mediation, Restorative Justice and Reparations with Andrew Woolford (2008)
 
Category:1938 births
Category:American professors
Category:American sociologists