Nicholas Shapiro
Assistant Professor
Society & Genetics, Life Sciences
DPhil, Anthropology, University of Oxford
MPhil, Medical Anthropology, University of Oxford
BA, Global Public Health and Anthropology, Bard College
Nicholas Shapiro is a multidisciplinary environmental researcher that studies, and designs interventions into, issues of chemical contamination and climate change. He has worked tracking the quasi-legal resale of 120,000+ chemically contaminated housing units after Hurricane Katrina, developing air monitoring systems with communities impacted by unconventional natural gas extraction, and testing fossil fuel-free means of long distance air travel.
Current projects include:
● Studying the efficacy and microbiome impacts of a low-cost bio-phyto air remediation system.
● Supporting environmental research on toxic living conditions within carceral institutions.
● Finishing a book about toxic homes, climate change, settler-colonialism, and the desire for a radically different future, provisionally entitled “Homesick”.
● Wrapping up his participation in the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), which he co-founded in 2016.
For more information on his hardware and software projects see here.
Select Publications
● Zhang, Siyang, Nicholas Shapiro, Gretchen Gehrke, Jessica Castner, Zhenlei Liu, Beverly Guo, Romesh Prasad, et al. 2019. “Smartphone App for Residential Testing of Formaldehyde (SmART-Form).” Building and Environment 148: 567–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.11.029.
Fredrickson, Leif, Christopher Sellers, Lindsey Dillon, Jennifer Liss Ohayon, Nicholas Shapiro, Marianne Sullivan, Stephen Bocking, et al. 2018. “History of US Presidential Assaults on Modern Environmental Health Protection.” American Journal of Public Health 108 (S2): S95–103. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304396.
Shapiro, Nicholas, Nasser Zakariya, and Jody Roberts. 2017. “A Wary Alliance: From Enumerating Environments to Inviting Apprehension.” Engaging STS 3: 575–602.
https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2017.133
● Shapiro, Nicholas. 2015. “Attuning to the Chemosphere: Domestic Formaldehyde, Bodily Reasoning, and the Chemical Sublime.” Cultural Anthropology 30 (3): 368–93. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca30.3.02.
Awards:
● 2017 Outstanding Contribution to Making and Doing, Society for the Social Studies of Science. A juried prize awarded annually to recognize STS knowledge and expertise that extend beyond the academic paper or book.
● 2017 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award, Society of American Archivists. A juried prize awarded annually for advancing archival projects with broad long-term impact. (as a founding member of EDGI)
● 2015 Cultural Horizons Prize, Society for Cultural Anthropology. A juried prize awarded annually for the best article in Cultural Anthropology.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zBoratory