Vanessa Lehmann
Visiting Assistant Professor
Vanessa Lehmann is Visiting Assistant Professor of International Politics at Georgetown University in Qatar. Her research spans political ecology, environmental political economy, and the environmental humanities, with a focus on environments shaped by political, social, and economic pressures. Grounded in postcolonial, new materialist, and spatial approaches, her work examines the world’s deserts as critical sites for understanding the Anthropocene.
At Georgetown University in Qatar, Professor Lehmann teaches courses in political ecology that invite students to think across disciplines and to engage with critical, experiential, and creative methods of environmental inquiry and politics.
In 2025, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Basel’s Forum Basiliense. Her research affiliations have included the CEDEJ in Cairo, the Cairo Lab for Urban Studies and Environmental Research (CLUSTER), and the IKKM at Bauhaus University Weimar. She has previously taught at Bauhaus University Weimar and at the Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences (CILAS).
Professor Lehmann completed her PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2024, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). She also holds an MA in International Studies from Goldsmiths, where she received the Alan Little Memorial Award for best academic achievement, and a double BA in Media Culture from Bauhaus University Weimar and Université Lumière Lyon 2, supported by a Deutsch–Französische Hochschule scholarship.
She has been an active member of several research collectives, including the Network of Urban Studies in Egypt and the CHASE Climate Justice Network. In 2018, she co-founded the research and publishing collective Konesh with Saba Zavarei. Konesh produced site-specific multimedia exhibitions in London and Cairo, as well as an edited journal exploring the intersections of art, environment, and space.
Beyond academia, Professor Lehmann has worked in international development with the GIZ, the World Health Organization, and the European Parliament.