Jessica Simes

Jessica T. Simes is Associate Professor of Sociology in Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences, with a secondary appointment in the Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences. She serves as Associate Director of Research at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and holds affiliations with the Center for Innovation in Social Science and the Initiative on Cities. Previously, she was University Provost Career Development Professor from 2016 to 2019. Simes holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University (2016), an M.A. in Sociology from Harvard University (2013), and a B.A. with honors, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in Sociology from Occidental College (2009). Her research examines how mass incarceration, policing, and prison conditions shape social inequality, population health, racial and health disparities, solitary confinement, and the social structure of cities. Current projects include a field study of solitary confinement and studies of racial and mental health disparities therein.

Simes authored Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment in America (University of California Press, 2021), which was awarded the 2022 Robert E. Park Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association Community and Urban Sociology Section. She is co-authoring Solitary Confinement: Institutional Harm and Inequality in American Prisons with Claudia Anderson and Bruce Western. Publications appear in Annual Review of Sociology, Science Advances, PLOS One, Criminology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, City & Community, Journal of Urban Health, and Social Service Review. Key articles include “Solitary Confinement and the U.S. Prison Boom” with Ryan Sakoda (Criminal Justice Policy Review, 2021), “The Ecology of Race and Punishment Across Cities” (City & Community, 2020), “Place and Punishment: The Spatial Context of Incarceration” (Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2018), and “Drug Use in the Year After Prison” with Bruce Western (Social Science & Medicine, 2019). She has received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, NSF grants including for the Pennsylvania Solitary Confinement Study, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding, Arnold Ventures support, Social Science Research Council grants, the Society for the Study of Social Problems Graduate Student Paper Award (2015), and the Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising (Boston University, 2020).

Professional Email: simes@bu.edu