As an anthropologist of technoscience, he studies the governance of disasters, waste and misinformation, with a primary focus on nuclear topics and a regional expertise on Japan.
Dr. Polleri is the author of Radioactive Governance: The Politics of Revitalization in Post-Fukushima Japan, which examines the worst industrial nuclear catastrophe to hit Japan. The book explores how different groups clash and collaborate to govern something as controversial as radiation risks and post-disaster recovery.
Dr. Polleri is now examining the governance of high-level radioactive waste in deep geological repositories. He has conducted research on the process of consent-based siting by focusing on Canadian and Japanese case studies. He is especially interested in studying how specific imaginaries of time and space influence the governance of spent nuclear fuel, as well as its burial for millennia across culture.
Other areas of interests include an anthropological approach to misinformation and disinformation studies. An edited volume on this topic is currently under advance contract with Routledge.
Lastly, he is investigating how generative AI systems reproduce and shape nuclear imaginaries, with a focus on epistemic bias, misinformation, and the development of ethical and educational tools to govern nuclear discourse in AI-generated content.
Dr. Polleri is a Network Affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, where he was previously a MacArthur Nuclear Security pre- and post-doctoral fellow. He is a also a member of MITATE Lab, an international research program on Fukushima issues. His research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Fonds de recherche du Québec, the Japan Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. His works have appeared in American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Anthropology Now, Anthropology Today, Social Studies of Science, and Current History, among others.
