Associate Professor
she/her
Jessica T. Simes is Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Her work contributes to sociological research on racial inequality, mass incarceration, the conditions of prison confinement, and the social structure of cities. Simes’s book, Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment in America (October 2021, University of California Press), describes in unprecedented detail the consequences of mass incarceration for neighborhoods and communities in the United States. Current projects include a field study of solitary confinement and studies of racial and mental health disparities in solitary confinement.
Simes received her B.A. with honors in Sociology with a minor in Critical Theory and Social Justice from Occidental College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.