Nost, Eric

GEOG*1220 Human Impact on the Environment
GEOG*2480 Mapping and GIS
GEOG*4480 Contemporary Geographical Thought
CONS*6030 Conservation Tools and technology
GEOG*6091 Geographical Research Methods II

For a full list of publications, see my CV here. For webmapping and other programming projects, visit my Github page.

Rojas, A.A., L. Vera, S. Hansen, E. Nost, S. Wylie, C. Alder, and EDGI. 2025. Infrastructuring Care: Co-Designing Computational Notebooks for Environmental Data Justice. Science, Technology, and Human Values.

Luque-Ayala, A, R. Machen, E. Nost. 2024. Digital natures: New ontologies, new politics? Digital Geography and Society.

Glaros, A., D. Thomas, E. Nost, E. Nelson, and T. Schumilas. 2023. Digital Technologies in Local Agri-Food Systems: Opportunities for a More Interoperable Digital Farmgate Sector. Frontiers in Sustainability.

Nost, E. and E. Colven. 2022. Earth for AI: A Political Ecology of Data-Driven Climate Initiatives. Geoforum.

Goldstein, J. and E. Nost, eds. 2022. The Nature of Data: Infrastructures, Environments, Politics. University of Nebraska Press.

Duncan, E., A. Glaros, D. Ross, & E. Nost. 2021. New but for whom? Discourses of innovation in precision agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values.

Machen, R. and E. Nost. 2021. Thinking algorithmically: The making of hegemonic knowledge in climate governance. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

I am recruiting Master’s and/or PhD students to start in Fall 2026 on two projects:

•  Urban Political Ecology of Informal Greenspaces - There is a growing movement to create national parks in urban Canada, propelled in part by COVID restrictions in which more people turned to parks as sources of relaxation and connection. At the same time, it is increasingly recognized that “informal greenspaces” (IGS) from pop-up parks to vacant lots may also provide significant ecosystem service and biodiversity benefits as well as meaningful recreational opportunities. This research project asks, how can we identify these IGS, understand what they mean to people, and assess their relationship with conventional parks? We will: 1) identify and characterize IGS using volunteered geographic information (VGI) from citizen science platforms; 2) compare informal and formal greenspaces in terms of their accessibility and biophysical qualities; 3) contextualize the limitations of the VGI data we utilize. We will test our approach in southern Ontario.
•  Situating Data for Environmental Justice – Canada’s National Strategy to Address Environmental Racism requires the federal government to complete a study examining whether racialized, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities are disproportionately exposed to hazards such as toxic pollutants. The study is likely to rely on existing datasets, mapping, and analytical approaches. As such, it may focus only on proving the existence of environmental racism rather than illustrating its mechanisms. Our project will instead demonstrate mechanisms such as the failure of policy to address cumulative effects, showing which communities have dealt with the most toxic substances, the longest, and which are home to industrial facilities habitually non-compliant with environmental health protection laws.

Prospective students should be interested in conducting interviews, document analysis, surveys, and/or statistical and spatial analysis for their research. I can offer training in communication skills - including mapping, data visualization, and public writing - and in the scholarly fields of political ecology and science and technology studies. Students would have the opportunity to collaborate with the Environmental and Data Governance Initiative and other partners. Former graduate students have gone on to work in academia and in the conservation and environmental NGO sectors.

I welcome interested candidates to email me with a brief statement of interest, an unofficial transcript, and a writing/research sample.