Max Liboiron

Assistant Professor (Ph.D. New York University)

Research Interests

Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Science and Techology, Discard Studies, Disaster, Activist Research

Contact Information

Ph: 709-864-2167
Em: mliboiron@mun.ca
Office: A-4069

Curriculum vitae (CV)

Personal Profile

Dr. Max Liboiron is a scholar and activist. Her academic work focuses on how invisible, harmful, emerging phenomena such as “slow” disasters and toxicants from plastics become apparent in science and activism, and how these methods of representation relate to action. Dr. Liboiron's social/science lab, Civic Laboratory, creates action-oriented research through grassroots environmental monitoring, mainly of marine plastics. Liboiron also runs the Discard Studies Blog, an interdisciplinary online hub for research on waste and wasting. Prior to her position at Memorial, Liboiron was a Postdoctoral Fellow with both the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University and with Intel’s Science and Technology Center for Social Computing. She holds a Ph.D. in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University.

Affiliations

Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Reserach (CLEAR), Director

Memorial University Science and Technology Studies (MUN//STS), Co-Director

Waste & Science, Tecnology, Environment (WaSTE), Member

Discard Studies, Managing Contributing Editor

Environmental Science Program, Memorial University, affiliated Faculty

Research

Liboiron, M. (2015). “Disaster Data, Data Activism: Grassroots Responses to Representating of Superstorm Sandy,” Extreme Weather and Global Media. Eds. Diane Negra and Julia Leyda. Routledge.

Pine, K. H., & Liboiron, M. (2015). “The Politics of Measurement and Action.” In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM: 3147-3156.

Morello-Frosch, R., Julia Varshavsky, Max Liboiron, Phil Brown, Julia G. Brody. (2015). “Communicating Results in Post-Belmont Era Biomonitoring Studies: Lessons from Genetics and Neuroimaging Research,” Environmental Research, 136: 363-372.

Liboiron, M. (2014). “The Plastisphere,” The Petroleum Magna. Eds. Marina Zurkow and Valerie Vogrin. Peanut Books.

Liboiron, M. (2013). “Modern Waste as Strategy,” Lo Squaderno: Explorations in Space and Society. Special edition on Garbage & Wastes. No 29. (open access)

Liboiron, M. (2013). “Plasticizers: A Twenty-first Century Miasma,” Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastics, Eds. Jennifer Gabrys, Gay Hawkins, Mike Michael. Routledge: 22-44.

Liboiron, M. and Wachsmuth, D. (2013). “The Fantasy of Disaster Response: Governance and Social Action During Hurricane Sandy,” Social Text Periscope. (open access)

Superstorm Research Lab (Erin Bergren, Jessica Coffey, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Ned Crowley, Michael Gould- Wartofsky, Liz Koslov, Max Liboiron, Adam Merdjanoff, Alexis, Murphree, Lui Lisa Ng, Shelly Ronen, David Wachsmuth). (2013). A Tale of Two Sandys. White paper.

Liboiron, M., (2012). “Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement,” Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, 11(3-4): 393-401.

Liboiron, M., (2010). “Recycling as a Crisis of Meaning,” Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Intersections Conference Journal: 1-9. (open access)