Lauren Richter

Lauren Richter

Assistant Professor
Sociology

Prior to joining the University of Toronto, Dr. Richter was an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. She received a Leadership Grant from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation to complete a Research Fellowship at the Silent Spring Institute and Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment in California before completing her Ph.D. in Sociology at Northeastern University. 

Areas of Interest

  • Environmental justice and health
  • Environmental sociology
  • Social movements and backlash
  • Environmental policy
  • Sociology of ignorance
  • The corporate form
  • White supremacy
Education
Ph.D. (Sociology, Northeastern University)
M.A. (Sociology, Washington State University)
B.A. (Sociology, Connecticut College)

Publications

Recent Publications

Bǎlan, Simona A., David Q. Andrews, Arlene Blum, Miriam L. Diamond, Seth Rojello Fernández, Elizabeth Harriman, Andrew B. Lindstrom, Anna Reade, Lauren Richter, Rebecca Sutton, Zhanyun Wang, and Carol F. Kwiatkowski. 2023. “Optimizing Chemicals Management in the United States and Canada through the Essential-Use Approach.” Environmental Science & Technology 57(4):1568–1575. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c05932

Ohayon, Jennifer Liss, Alissa Cordner, Andrea Amico, Phil Brown, and Lauren Richter. 2023. “Persistent Chemicals, Persistent Activism: Scientific Opportunity Structures and Social Movement Organizing on Contamination by per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances.” Social Movement Studies. doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2178403

Liévanos, Raoul S., Elisabeth Wilder, Lauren Richter, Jennifer Carrera, and Michael Mascarenhas. 2021. “Challenging the White Spaces of Environmental Sociology." Environmental Sociology 7(2):103-109. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.1902665

Richter, Lauren, Alissa Cordner, and Phil Brown. 2021. “Producing Ignorance Through Enviromental Regulatory Structure: The Case of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS).” Sociological Perspectives 64(4):631-656. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121420964827

Nost, Eric, Sara Wylie, Chris Sellers, Becky Mansfield, Kelsey Breseman, Gretchen Gehrke, Lourdes Vera, Lauren Richter, and EDGI. 2020. “Environmental Data for the Green New Deal.” Science for the People (23)2.

Cordner, Alissa, Lauren Richter, and Phil Brown. 2019. “Environmental Chemicals and Public Sociology: Engaged Scholarship on Highly Fluorinated Compounds.” Environmental Sociology 5(4):339-351. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2019.1629271

Other

Specialization
Crime and Law; Health & Mental Health; Colonization, Racialization, Indigeneity; Theory