Richard B. Zamoff

Richard Zamoff joined the Sociology Department at The George Washington University in 1982. His prior professional engagements included service as a Senior Research Associate at The Urban Institute, a Senior Scientist at the National Institute for Advanced Studies, a Senior Staff Associate at The Center for Urban Education, and an Associate Field Manager at the National Opinion Research Center (University of Chicago). He has taught at Columbia College, Queens College of the City University of New York, and Trinity University.

Dr. Zamoff also has managed and supervised technical work on numerous government contracts related to the prevention and amelioration of societal problems. Key clients have included: the National Institute on Drug Abuse; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; the Administration for Children, Youth and Families; the Department of Energy; the Office of Planning and Evaluation in the Department of Health and Human Services; and the District of Columbia Agency on HIV/AIDS. He has consulted for the American Public Welfare Association, the National Education Association, and the American Association of Retired Persons. His engagements have involved the substantive areas of substance abuse, traffic safety, home health care, prostate cancer, day care, and welfare to work initiatives.

Dr. Zamoff teaches multiple sections of Introduction to Sociology as well as the Sociology of Sports and Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream. His areas of specialization include: the relationship between sports, race, and society; educational sociology; program evaluation; and quantitative and qualitative methods of social research. Since 1996, he has served as Director of the Jackie Robinson Project, initially funded with a grant from the District of Columbia Humanities Council in 1996. For the past twenty-three years, the Jackie Robinson Project has operated as a self-funded project. As of May of 2018, the Jackie Robinson Project had served over 8,000 GW students and another 8,000 younger students and 350 teachers and administrators in schools and community organizations in ten states and the District of Columbia. The project has received resolutions of commendation and citations from city governments and state legislatures.

Since 1999, Dr. Zamoff also has served as Faculty Advisor to the Jackie and Rachel Robinson Society, a student organization dedicated to preserving the memory and promoting the legacy of Jackie Robinson as an informal civil rights leader. Students in the Jackie and Rachel Robinson Society interact with Jackie Robinson Project staff on an ongoing basis in order to gain the expertise required to transmit the Robinson legacy to others.