Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Phone:
519 824-4120 ext. 53279
Email:
Office:
Hutt 344
Nost, Eric
I research how data technologies inform environmental governance. New kinds of data-generating sensors and data-synthesizing algorithms are becoming central to everyday life and may prove transformational at a policy-level as well. A key challenge for geographers in the coming years is assessing these technologies’ promise to help society solve sustainability issues related to food security, climate change adaptation, and ecosystem services conservation. This will be done by understanding their human dimensions - their design, use, maintenance, and social impacts - alongside other governance trends such as marketization and metrification. My work contributes to the fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and digital geographies and is currently supported by several grants, including a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
I teach undergraduate courses in nature-society geography and mapping as well as a graduate course in the department’s new Master of Conservation Leadership. I serve on the coordinate committee of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, where we bring people together to analyze publicly-available pollution data and track how the US federal government portrays climate change on the web.
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For a full list of publications, see my CV here. For webmapping and other programming projects, visit my Github page.
Nost, E. 2020. Infrastructuring “data-driven” environmental governance in Louisiana’s coastal restoration plan. Environment & Planning E: Nature and Space.
Nost, E., M. Robertson, and R. Lave. 2019. Q-method and the performance of subjectivity: Reflections from a survey of US stream restoration practitioners. Geoforum 105: 23-31.
Nost, E. 2019. Climate services for whom? The political economics of contextualizing climate data for Louisiana’s coastal Master Plan. Climatic Change. 157(1): 27-42.
Walker, D., E. Nost, A. Lemelin, R. Lave, and L. Dillon. 2018. Practicing environmental data justice: From DataRescue to Data Together. Geo.
Moore, S. A., H. Rosenfeld, E. Nost, K. Vincent, and R. E. Roth. 2018. Undermining methodological nationalism: Cosmopolitan analysis and visualization of the North American hazardous waste trade. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.
Nost, E. and M. Kelly. 2018. “Land Loss and Restoration in Coastal Louisiana: 1932-2009” in Water: An Atlas. Guerrilla Cartography.
Moore, S., R. Roth, H. Rosenfeld, E. Nost, K. Vincent, T. Buckingham, M.R. Arefin. 2017. Undisciplining Environmental Justice Research with Visual Storytelling Geoforum.
Nost, E., H. Rosenfeld, K. Vincent, S. Moore, and R.E. Roth. 2017. HazMatMapper: An online and interactive geographic visualization tool for exploring transnational flows of hazardous waste and environmental justice. Journal of Maps 13(1): 14-23. Map . Shortlisted for Journal of Maps’s 2017 “Best Map” award.
Nost, E. 2015. Performing nature’s value: software and the making of Oregon’s ecosystem services markets. Environment and Planning: A 47 (12): 2573-2590.
My research is currently supported by several grants, including a SSHRC Insight Development Grant. I’m excited to hear from prospective grad students who are curious about the intersections of data technologies and environmental governance. Some specific projects we might collaborate on include:
• Evaluating opportunities and challenges to the use of data technologies in nature conservation. Please see this flyer on my SSHRC-funded project “Digital Conservation Practices and Perspectives” for more details!
• Visualizing climate and environmental governance data through “counter-data” and “counter-mapping” methods.
Prospective students should be interested in conducting interviews, document analysis, and/or surveys for their research, as well as working critically with data technologies themselves. I can offer training in critical communication skills - including mapping, web design, and public writing - and in the scholarly fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and digital geographies.
Please see this flyer on my SSHRC-funded project Digital Conservation Practices and Perspectives for more details.
I encourage interested candidates to email me at enost@uoguelph.ca with a brief statement of interest, an unofficial transcript, a writing / research sample, and a CV/resume.
Relevant Files
Graduate Students Supervised
| Name | Research | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ph.D. | Glaros, Alex | ||
| M.A. | MacIntyre, Jillian | Understanding the barriers to agroecological farming practices in the Maritimes through a climate justice lens. | |
| M.A. | O'Brien, Aidan | Data governance and decision-support systems for precision soil carbon conservation. |