Alissa Cordner

Alissa Cordner is Associate Professor of Sociology and Garrett Fellow at Whitman College. Her 2016 book, Toxic Safety: Flame Retardants, Chemical Controversies, and Environmental Health, examines how environmental health risks are defined and contested, in the face of unavoidable scientific uncertainty and competing, powerful stakeholders. Dr. Alissa's research focuses on environmental sociology, the sociology of risk and disasters, environmental health and justice, and politics and participation. She is currently working on three projects: the social and political aspects of wildfire risk management, farmers' experiences with environmental risks, and the social and scientific discoveries of per-fluorinated chemicals. She has published articles in Environmental Sociology, The American Journal of Sociology, Health Affairs, Social Movement Studies, Environmental Science & Technology, Teaching Sociology, and Social Science & Medicine. She has also collaborated with a team at Brown University and New York University on a multi-sited collective ethnography in Providence, RI. Their 2014 book, The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life, focuses on civic engagement in Providence, Rhode Island.