Who We Are

SMU is home to a number of centers, projects and scholars addressing infrastructure and economic equity, access to healthcare and housing, mass incarceration, educational inequities and other challenges facing cities and their inhabitants around the world.

Centers and Projects

The Budd Center: Involving Communities in Education

The trauma of living in poverty too often causes children to struggle academically. Without having their social, emotional and educational needs met, many students disengage from learning, drop out or graduate from high school unprepared for college and careers. Schools and nonprofits strive to address students’ complex needs; however, information gaps and limited resources hinder their efforts. The Budd Center addresses these challenges by equipping schools and nonprofits to work together and meet the extraordinary needs of children in poverty. Learn more

The Center for Research and Evaluation (CORE) developed Consortium on Educational Research and Improvement (CERI) to help support the next generation of SMU research by faculty and graduate students and promote the sharing of new knowledge to educational leaders.

CERI is a collaboration between Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD). SMU and Dallas ISD are working together to identify and support mutually beneficial research, evaluation and improvement projects. Learn more

Stats. Stories. Change.

The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center is a nonpartisan center for research and advocacy that combines data-driven research and compelling stories to advocate for innovative criminal justice reform. Learn more

The Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute promotes a culture of interdisciplinary problem-solving and knowledge creation to meet the world's increasingly complex needs and challenges, bringing together faculty, students, and the DFW community through research initiatives, student fellowships, and events. Relevant past and present research clusters include  Data Science for Social Good, Asian Studies and Asian American Experiences, Perceptions of Us and We Are All Homeless, and Urban Research. Learn more

The Robert and Margaret Folsom Institute for Real Estate bridges the academic and professional worlds to provide students with hands-on experience in the real estate market.  In 2022, the Folsom Institute set out to launch a new initiative around experiential learning.  This initiative resulted in the creation of the student-managed SMU Cox Real Estate Impact Investment Fund. The fund, which, as of June 2023, had grown to $4 million, has a double-bottom line goal in that all investments must achieve both a risk adjusted financial return and a positive return on the community that the students invest in. 

This combination of financial gain and community gain forces students to underwrite opportunities that are challenging to capitalize, while simultaneously helping them to become better citizens and leaders in the community that we live in.  The profits from the fund’s investment will growth both the fund’s corpus and create a new endowed scholarship with a preference for students who live in the communities where the fund invests. Learn more

At the Hart Center, we pair an elite technical education with exceptional leadership and professional development skills to produce world-changing engineers. We help students take advantage of Dallas-Fort Worth’s thriving business environment and provide them with the foundation needed to build leadership skills and reach professional goals. Learn more

The John Goodwin Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs seeks to bridge the gap between the world of ideas, scholarship and teaching, and the practical application of ethical public leadership and responsibility among undergraduates. The Tower Center is a nonpartisan, academic center that values diversity of thought and encourages all parties and views to be heard in a marketplace of ideas. Learn more

The Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center is an action-oriented, research policy center looking to understand and explore the dynamic political, cultural, economic and business relationship between Texas and Mexico. Learn more

Restorative Farms is developing a community based food system dedicated to addressing the lack of healthy food options and economic development opportunities in Dallas with special focus on the South Dallas and the Fair Park area. Learn more

The SMU Data Science Institute coordinates and facilitate interdisciplinary research teams and programs in Data Science across the university and in partnership with corporations, federal/state/local governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations. There are core strengths in three interrelated groups: Data Core, Technology-Enhanced Immersive Learning (TEIL), and Health Analytics. Learn more

The SMU DataArts research center’s mission is to provide and engage organizations and individuals with the evidence-based insights needed to collectively build strong, vibrant, and equitable arts communities. The center offers access to a wide range of interconnected datasets centered on arts & culture including longitudinal data on operations, finances, and programs of cultural organizations, household-level ticket purchase information, public funding data, and community-level data. Recent lines of inquiry have included the development of a zip-code level arts vibrancy index measure across the country, an exploration of the relationship between factors such as funding sources and venue location on the diversity of performing arts audiences, and how distance from a venue influences arts attendance. This rich data set has been a critical resource for a wide range of publications, and the DataArts team is eager to collaborate with the incoming Urban Research faculty on new lines of questioning and exploration. Learn more

In 1993, SMU Professor Willie Baronet began We Are All Homeless, an art and social justice project. Baronet created art exhibits showcasing various signs in different configurations. Since 2009, there have been over 35 art installations of We Are All Homeless in museums and art galleries in the United States and the United Kingdom.

We Are All Homeless has over 7.7 million website views, 100,000 video shares, and has raised close to $500,000 for non-profits dedicated to assisting unhoused persons and families. Baronet has recorded 3 TEDx Talks and conducted over 40 workshops with students and community members. The documentary, Signs of Humanity, records his trek across the United States where Professor Baronet collected over 280 signs and conducted 100 interviews of unhoused persons. Signs of Humanity has been featured in 8 film festivals and has won best documentary awards. Learn more

Faculty