Sonja Nielsen

Doctoral Researcher
sonja.nielsen[at]aalto.fi

Sonja’s dissertation critically examines and further develops knowledge co-production methods in environmental governance, empirically focusing on the Transition Arena method in Finland. She isespecially interested in understanding how social impacts emerge in these settings and how they connect to environmental policy processes as participatory experiments. Her research interests lie in the intersection(s) of environmental governance, science and technology studies (STS), participatory design, and sustainability science.

She conducts her research as part of Experimental environmental governance: coproduction and orchestration of transformative change (EE-GOCO) consortium of Aalto University and the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) funded by the Research Council of Finland. She is also part of the Material Democracy – Reducing Polarization via Material Participation (MaDem) consortium, which focuses on the future of democracy by investigating and developing ways to increase participation in Finnish infrastructure, energy and environmental policy.

Before her doctoral studies, Sonja worked as a senior designer and sustainability specialist in several consultancies, collaborating with public and private sector organizations on various development projects. Sonja pursued her Master's degree in the transdisciplinary Creative Sustainability Master's program at Aalto University, before which she studied at Lund University, Emily Carr University of Art+Design, and University of Helsinki.

Find Sonja’s publications here