Contested Illnesses Research Group
Brown University , Providence RI

Alissa Cordner is a PhD student in Brown’s Sociology department. Her broad research interests include environmental sociology, science and technology studies, urban sociology, medical sociology, and qualitative methodology. Alissa is the graduate research assistant on the Flame Retardant Chemicals project funded by NSF. Her Masters Thesis (2010) looks at boundary-work and uncertainty in the science, policy, and advocacy done around flame retardant chemicals. She is also interested in environmental justice, how environmental injustices and associated health outcomes are distributed spatially, and how environmental justice work is done by community organizations. Her work also examines how biomonitoring research is used and interpreted by non-scientific actors, and how the risks associated with chemical body burdens are understood by the public.