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Please contact me for a copy of any paper you may be interested in.

Publications

Demortain, D., Frickel, S., *Beck, S., *Gray, I., *Grundmann, R., *Hannud Abdo, A., *Kinniburgh, F., *Kitson, D., *Matzner, N., *Rea, C., *Tollefson, J., and *Wetts, R. 2026. “Computational science and technology studies? Assembling STS theory-methods packages with computation.” Accepted for publication, Science, Technology, & Human Values.
     *Listed alphabetically

Tollefson, J., Frickel, S., Helgeson, J., and Gore, C. 2026. “Adapting to adaptation: Conceptual development in community resilience planning.” Accepted for publication, Ecology & Society.

Tollefson, J. 2026. “Environment and the racialization of space in US cities.” Social Forces (online first).

  • IPUMS USA: Student Research Award
  • American Sociological Association, Environmental Sociology Section: Graduate Student Paper Award - Honorable Mention
  • Society for the Study of Social Problems, Environment and Technology Division: Brent K. Marshall Award
  • Eastern Sociological Society: Candace Rogers Award - Honorable Mention
  • Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, Brown University: Graduate Student Paper Prize

Tollefson, J., Frickel, S., and Gore, C., and Helgeson, J. 2025. “Community resilience planning: What new methods reveal about the formation and transformation of a field.” WIREs Climate Change 16(4): e70015.

Candipan, J. and Tollefson, J. 2024. “Machine learning and large-scale data for understanding urban inequality.” The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning, edited by C. Borch and J.P. Pardo-Guerra. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Tollefson, J., Frickel, S., Gonsalves, S., and Marlow, T. 2023. “Parks, people and pollution: A relational study of socioenvironmental succession.” City & Community (special issue: Environmentalizing Urban Sociology) 22(4): 286–307.

Tollefson, J., Frickel, S., Gonsalves, S., Marlow, T., Sucsy, R., Byrns, M., and Orpen-Tuz, M. 2023. “Early childcare and education in a post-industrial landscape: Inequalities in exposure to active and relic manufacturing in metropolitan Providence, Rhode Island.” Environmental Justice 16(4): 309-320.

Frickel, S. and Tollefson, J. 2022. “When environmental inequality racialized: Historical evidence from Providence, Rhode Island.” Socius 8:1-14.

Tollefson, J., Frickel, S. and Restrepo, MI. 2021. “Feature extraction and machine learning techniques for identifying historic urban environmental hazards.” PLoS ONE 16(8): e0255507.

  • American Association of Geographers, Spatial Analysis and Modeling Group: John Odland Award - Finalist

Tollefson, J. and Panikkar, B. 2020. “Impact assessment, public engagement, and environmental knowledge production: Large mine permitting in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.” Journal of Political Ecology 27(1): 1166-1188.

  • Rural Sociological Society, Natural Resources RIG: Graduate Student Paper Award

Tollefson, J. 2020. “Post-Fukushima discourse in the US press: Quantified knowledge, the technical object, and a panicked public.” Public Understanding of Science 29(7): 670-687.

Panikkar, B. and Tollefson, J. 2018. “Land as material, knowledge and relationships: Resource extraction and subsistence imaginaries in Bristol Bay, Alaska.” Social Studies of Science 48(5): 715-739.

Manuscripts

Tollefson, J. “The environmental dimensions of HOLC redlining decisions.” Working paper. Delivered at Population Association of America (Washington, DC. Apr. 10-13, 2025) and American Sociological Association (Chicago, IL. Aug. 8-12, 2025).

Tollefson, J. “Industrial geography and urban inequality formation in the early 20th century.” Working paper.

*Chaves, R., Tollefson, J., and *Long, M. “New methods for historical research on social and environmental geography in US cities.” Working paper.
     *Masters student research assistants

Frickel, S., Demortain, D., Beck, S., Gray, I., Grundmann, R., Hannud Abdo, A., Kinniburgh, F., Kitson, D., Matzner, N., Rea, C., Tollefson, J., and Wetts, R. Environmental knowledge and politics. In progress.

Tollefson, J. and Frickel, S. “STS methods for historical environmental justice research.” Invited chapter for Common(s) in science and technology? Research-action in the SEEKCommons Network (Murillo, L.F., Milia, M. and Bashir, I.B., eds.).

Public-facing writing

Tollefson, J. 2023. “Redlining and segregation in Providence, RI.” Essay for Mapping Inequality. Richmond, VA: University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab.

Tollefson, J. and Frickel, S. 2021. “Gasworks, lost and found.” Urban Omnibus. New York: Architectural League of New York. July 1.

Tollefson, J. and Urso, M. 2018. “Black Lives Matter at St. Patrick’s Day Parade.” Op-ed in the Providence Journal. April 2.