Jessica Barnes will spend a year writing about London thanks to a major fellowship supporting her writing on the effects of air pollution in the British urban center.
The associate professor in the University of South Carolina’s Department of Geography and School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment, has been awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship — one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for scholars, artists and scientists.
Barnes is known for her research on how people interact with the environment in their everyday lives — especially how resources like water, food and air are used, controlled and experienced unequally across different communities. Her work combines geography, anthropology and environmental studies, and has received national recognition from organizations like the American Association of Geographers and the American Anthropological Association. She also was named a McCausland Faculty Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences in 2017.
“Dr. Barnes’ work exemplifies the kind of scholarship that not only advances academic understanding but also speaks directly to some of the most pressing challenges facing our world today,” said Joel Samuels, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her research into how environmental inequality affects people’s daily lives brings a critical human dimension to conversations about climate and public health.”
With support from the Guggenheim Foundation, Barnes will spend the 2026 spring and fall semesters completing her third book, Porous City: An Ethnography of Air Pollution in London. The project explores how air pollution — though often invisible — shapes people’s lives in powerful ways. Based on fieldwork in a diverse, working-class neighborhood of West London, Barnes documents how residents navigate health risks from both outdoor pollutants, such as traffic emissions, and indoor irritants such as mold in public housing. The book also examines how policymakers and community members are working to increase awareness and understanding of pollution.
Barnes’ interest in the relationship between people and the environment began with her early research on water use in Syria and Egypt. She has spent her career studying the connections between environmental change and everyday life, often in vulnerable communities.
“Breath is life too,” she writes in her fellowship application. “And it’s in the small details of ordinary lives and places that we sometimes find answers to big questions about environmental change.”
A faculty member at USC since 2013, Barnes continues to push the boundaries of environmental research with projects that are globally relevant and deeply human.
Barnes is one of two Gamecocks honored in this year’s class of Guggenheim Fellows. Poet Dan Albergotti, who earned a Ph.D. in English from USC in 1995, was also selected for the prestigious fellowship.