Dr. Esther Veen

Position: Professor
Professorship: Urban Food Issues
Email: e.veen@aeres.nl
Social media: LinkedIn

Dr. Esther Veen works on the subject of food in an urban context. She researches how the food environment can stimulate a healthier and more sustainable diet. The focus is on human routines and how these routines can be altered, and on the role of growing food in cities.

As of 1 July 2021, Esther was assigned to Aeres University of Applied Sciences by Flevo Campus as the professor of Urban Food Issues. In this position, she focuses specifically on five themes:

1. The multicultural food environment
2. The protein transition
3. Food waste and how to reduce this
4. Young people and the school environment
5. Food and poverty.

In all of these lines of research, the focus is on the urban consumer and the city of Almere. She concentrates specifically on connecting research with education.

Esther studied at Wageningen UR to become a rural sociologist. After working briefly as a consultant, she went to Wageningen Plant Research, where she studied multifunctional agriculture and urban agriculture as a researcher. In that position, Esther obtained her doctorate in neighbourhood vegetable gardens, social cohesion and alternative food networks. She was supervised by the Rural Sociology Chair of Wageningen UR. After defending her PhD thesis, she stayed on to work as a university lecturer.