Jessica Pardee

Associate Professor

Department of Science, Technology, and Society

College of Liberal Arts

jwpgss@rit.edu

Office Location

EAS-2154

Jessica Pardee

Associate Professor

Department of Science, Technology, and Society

College of Liberal Arts

Education

BA, MA, Ph.D., Tulane University

Bio

Jessica W. Pardee, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, and Society Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Pardee earned her degree in 2009 from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, where she was enrolled at the time of Hurricane Katrina. In 2014, she published the book Surviving Katrina, a study of the survival strategies of low-income, African-American women during and following the hurricane. This book and related research investigates the intersection of race, class, gender, and geography, in relation to disaster preparedness, lived experience, and recovery. Dr. Pardee also devotes time to examining the meaning of conducting research on traumatic community events from a reflexive perspective. Additional projects include assessing the disaster preparedness of childcare facilities in the greater Rochester, NY metropolitan area, and using agent-based modeling to forecast the effects of family evacuation patterns on decision-making and timeliness.

Education

Ph.D. Tulane University, Sociology, May 2009
Dissertation: “Evacuation, Extended Displacement, and Recovery: Responses of Low-income Women to the Hurricane Katrina Disaster.” Director: Martha K. Huggins
M.A. Tulane University, Sociology, 2001
Thesis: “A Prenuptial for the Masses: Examining the Theory and Implementation of Covenant Marriage in Louisiana.” Director: James D. Wright
B.A. Tulane University, Sociology, 1999.

Areas of Specialization

Disasters
Race Relations
Urban Sociology
Research Methods
Policy Evaluation

Courses

Diversity in the City

Qualitative Methods

Urban Poverty

U.S. Housing Policy

Foundations of Sociology

Urban Experience

Quantitative Research

Selected Publications

Intro to Environmental Studies

STS - Special Topics

jwpgss@rit.edu

Select Scholarship

Books

Pardee, Jessica Warner. 2014. Surviving Katrina:The Experiences of Low-Income African American Women. Boulder: First Forum Press/Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-62637-044-9

Journal Articles, Book Chapters, and Essays

Long, Michael, Bernard Brooks, Patrick Morabito, Jennifer Schneider, and Jessica Pardee. Accepted, Forthcoming. “The Relationship between Social and Hierarchical Communication Networks in Rural Emergency Response.” International Journal of Emergency Management (IJEM).

Peek, Lori, Alice Fothergill, Jessica W. Pardee, and Lynn Weber. 2014. “Studying Displacement: New Networks, Lessons Learned.” Sociological Inquiry 84(3): 354-359.

Pardee, Jessica W. 2012. “Living through Displacement: Housing Insecurity among Low-Income Evacuees.” Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora, Lynn Weber and Lori Peek, Eds. University of Texas Press: Austin, TX.

Pardee, Jessica W. 2007, Reprint 2011. “Using Simmel to Survive: The Blasé Attitude as a Disaster Reaction and Response.” Pp. 151-168 in Narrating the Storm: Sociological Stories of Hurricane Katrina. Danielle A. Hidalgo and Kristen Barber, Eds. Cambridge Scholar Publishing: Newcastle, U.K.

Barber, Kristen, Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, Timothy J. Haney, Stan Weeber, Jessica W. Pardee, and Jennifer Day. 2007. “Narrating the Storm: Storytelling as a Methodological Approach to Understanding Hurricane Katrina.” Journal of Public Management and Social Policy 13(2): 99-120.

Pardee, Jessica W. 2006. “Welfare Reform and Housing Retrenchment: What Happens When Two Policies Collide?” Pp. 133-139 in The Promise of Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and the Reality of Poverty in the Twenty-First Century. Keith M. Kilty and Elizabeth A. Segal, Eds. Haworth: Binghamton, NY.

Pardee, Jessica W. and Kevin Fox Gotham. 2005. “HOPE VI, Section 8, and the Contradictions of Low-Income Housing Policy.” Journal of Poverty 9(2): 1-21.

Currently Teaching

STSO-201

Science and Technology Policy

3 Credits

STP eExamines how local, state, federal and international policies are developed to influence innovation, the transfer of technology and industrial productivity in the United States and other selected nations. It provides a framework for considering the mechanisms of policy as a form of promotion and control for science and technology, even once those innovations are democratized and effectively uncontrollable. Further focus is dedicated to the structure of governance inherent in U.S. domestic policy, limits of that approach, the influences of international actors, and utilizing case studies to demonstrate the challenges inherent in managing differing types of technology.

STSO-220

Environment and Society

3 Credits

Environment and Society examines the social, cultural, political, and ethical issues related to the environment. The main purpose of this course is to get you to think critically about environment and society relations—how humans interact with the environment and one another—and the consequences of those interactions on individual, local, national, and regional levels. It is organized around the concepts of sustainability and resilience, which combine interdisciplinary insights from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Other key themes include the Anthropocene, industrialization and impacts of capitalism, and intersectionality and environmental justice.

STSO-240

Social Consequences of Technology

3 Credits

Technology has an impact on every aspect of our social lives. With each advance, unanticipated problems emerge, leading to complex debates about addressing the negative consequences. This course highlights the social, ethical, and humanistic challenges of assorted technologies, past and present. We will investigate how various technologies developed and compare the expected effects of the new technologies with the actual results.

STSO-340

Technological Disasters

3 Credits

Disasters represent a disruption to daily life, with technological disasters defined as disasters resulting from human-made causes, where failures in modern technology create both acute and ongoing dangers for communities. This course focuses on how human technological advances can have adverse impacts on the communities those innovations are meant to improve. Through an investigation of technological systems and case-specific technologies, combined with ecological, social, and political systems, the causes, consequences, and long-term implications of technological disasters are considered. The course will examine cases that range from the actual to the anticipated, such as the New Orleans levee failures, Flint water crisis, Dalkon shield contraception, large-scale networked hacks, CRISPR-created and/or naturally-occurring superviruses, voting poll technology failures, and AI, in the context of the societal systems of modern industrial capitalism. Special attention will be paid to aspects of social vulnerability which make the impacts of technological disasters different for various sub-populations within their respective communities.

STSO-360

Surveillance and Society

3 Credits

Yes, you are being watched. In this course, we consider how surveillance technologies permeate all areas of life for humans, animals, and robots. From smart houses that are always listening, to tracking devices for wildlife research, or networked AI-enhanced robots, the role of surveillance is an under-examined constant in post-millennium life. Whether surveilled by government agencies for social control, private corporations for profit, family members for safety, or friends and the public for amusement, the power dynamics of how surveillance data are gathered, stored, managed, and distributed reveal new social and ethical relationships, while also reinforcing pre-existing patterns of bias and inequality. The ethical impacts of surveillance technologies press the limits of civil society, privacy assumptions, and even animal rights, when gathering and storing data without consent or among vulnerable populations. In this course, you will discover the promises and perils of surveillance technology by applying insights from STS (science and technology studies) and other interdisciplinary fields.