Jessica T. Simes is Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University.

Her scholarship broadly examines the consequences of mass incarceration for communities and neighborhoods in the United States. Her research to date has focused on racial inequality and health disparities in criminalizing and punitive experiences.

She is the author of Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment (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. Excerpts from her book are published at Inquest and UC Press Blog, and the book has been reviewed in American Journal of Sociology, Public Books, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.

Jessica Simes is a 2023 recipient of the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award, a five-year grant in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.

Jessica's research has been published in a wide range of academic outlets, including Annual Review of Sociology, PLOS One, Science Advances, Journal of Urban Health, City & Community, Social Service Review, Criminology, and Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Her work has received awards from the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her research has been supported by grants from National Science Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Arnold Ventures, and the Social Science Research Council. Her work is featured in TIME, The Atlantic, CityLab, The Appeal, and GovTech, among other outlets.

In addition to research on the spatial context of mass incarceration, she is currently working on two main research projects: a study of the social and health effects of solitary confinement, and a study of the effects of cash bail reform on community well-being.

Jessica received her B.A. 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.

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