RESEARCH
OVERVIEW
Hi! I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California Los Angeles and work with the Governors for Climate (GCF) and Forests Task Force.
I'm interested in policies and governance mechanisms of land use. Specifically, I investigate if and how certain governance approaches can help to reduce the negative impacts of land use in the tropics while encouraging sustainable and fair use of natural resources. To address my research questions, I use qualitative and quantitative methods.
Please feel free to contact me for questions or suggestions at vonessen@ucla.edu.
CURRENT PROJECTS
I am currently working on two qualitative studies on the topics of 1) remote sensing for forest governance, and 2) challenges and opportunities of jurisdictional approaches.
The first study evolved from a workshop held by the Governors for Climate and Forests Task Force at UCLA, and the second from the fifteenth anniversary of the GCF Task Force in 2023, providing a great occasion for taking stock of the jurisdictional approach. You can find more detail on both studies here.
PAST PROJECTS
Can governance interventions be successful in slowing deforestation? Under what conditions are they the most effective and equitable? Using our agent-based model, we test these question in this study.
Land use governance interventions - like jurisdictional approaches - are notoriously difficult to study. This is why we developed an agent-based model that allows us to investigate governance interventions through computer simulation.
What are jurisdictional approaches to sustainable resource use? How can they be categorized and how are they different from other approaches? Can they deliver effective and equitable outcomes? We try to answer these questions in this conceptual study.