Dr Netta Cohen

I am currently a Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church College. I completed my doctoral degree in 2019 at the Centre for History of Science, Medicine and Technology, the University of Oxford. During my doctoral studies, I received several scholarships and fellowships, including the Oxford-Pears Foundation Scholarship, the Leo Baeck scholarship, the graduate research fellowship at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, and a research affiliation at the Taub Center for Israel Studies in NYU. In 2018 I co-founded the Oxford Environmental History Network (OEHN) which aims to connect researchers working on environmental history at the University of Oxford. Since 2021 I am also heading the online international research group Jewish Environmental History (sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute).

Research interests

• Environmental History
• Global and Colonial History
• Modern Jewish History
• History of Israel-Palestine

My monograph New Under the Sun: Zionist Encounters with the Climate in Palestine was published in 2024 by the University of California Press. The book focuses on Oriental and colonial aspects of Zionist knowledge production, with respect to the climate and environment in Palestine during the first half of the twentieth century. There is a particular emphasis on the ways in which the local climate was understood and dealt with in the fields of medicine, architecture, and agriculture.