Véra Ehrenstein
Sociology
Véra Ehrenstein is a researcher in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) based at the Maison française d’Oxford (MFO). Her work examines the production of scientific knowledge to address environmental concerns, particularly climate change. Her current research focuses on how forest ecology is scaling up to align with global change science, from the use of increasingly sophisticated sensors and computer models to the creation of large-scale networks of field sites and collaborators.
Véra received her PhD in 2014 from the Ecole des mines de Paris, France. Her dissertation was about the REDD+ climate change mitigation policy (creating incentives to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries). She studied how the policy’s terms were negotiated during the United Nations climate talks and how development experts started implementing it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Part of this work was concerned with forest-based carbon offsetting and the importance of its technicalities to understand why it is so controversial. Véra then held research and teaching positions at Goldsmiths College and University College London, where she further researched the expertise underpinning market-based interventions aimed at addressing public problems. She co-authored the book Can markets solve problems with Daniel Neyland and Sveta Milyaeva (Goldsmiths Press, 2019).
Since 2024, Véra participates in the FORESTT interdisciplinary research programme on forest resilience (France 2030, ANR, INRAE). She co-leads a FORESTT-HUB work package alongside colleagues from the University of Picardie and the French National Museum of Natural History, and conducts an STS research project in collaboration with colleagues from AgroParisTech and the University of Dschang in Cameroon. At the MFO, she will expand this research, focusing on the moral economy of the “data turn” in tropical forest ecology, specifically in Central Africa. As scientists try to better estimate carbon stocks and fluxes and understand trees’ vulnerability to heat and drought, Véra’s work explores how they also grapple with asymmetrical work relations, epistemic uncertainties, interdisciplinary frictions, data sharing issues, and political expectations about their research’s relevance.
Latest publications
Ehrenstein, Véra, 2025, “Forests high on CO2: a glimpse into how scientists study the biochemical machinery of forest ecosystems,” Environment and Planning F, 4(2), 93-110.
Ehrenstein, Véra, Meredith Root-Bernstein, 2025, “What do we see when we look through the ‘anthromes lens’?” Plants People Planet 7:1559–1569.
Ehrenstein, Véra, 2024, “Weighing the forest: field measurements, remote sensing, and carbon payments in Central Africa,” in Richard Rottenburg, Faeeza Ballim, and Bronwyn Kotzen (eds.) Translating Technology in Africa. Volume 1: Metrics, Brill.