Dr. Ulrike Lehr studied physics at the University of Essen (Dipl. Phys. 1990) and economics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (M.Sc. Econ).

From 1993 to 1999 she worked at the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI Essen). From 1999 she worked at the Chair of Environmental Economics, BTU Cottbus, and from 2001 at the Chair of Regulatory Policy and Environmental Economics, University of Hohenheim.

She received her PhD in 2005 for a thesis on benefit transfer in environmental valuation and the use of the contingent valuation method.

From 2005 to 2008, she worked in the Department of Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment at the DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics in Stuttgart.

Since April 2008 Ulrike Lehr has been working at GWS. She focuses on the macroeconomic effects of efficient energy use and the expansion of renewable energies as well as the effects of an international green transformation on employment, especially for marginalized and vulnerable groups. She worked for multinational organizations between 2021 and 2025. Until January 2022, she headed the Policy Department (Socioeconomics) at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and was a Senior Economist at the World Bank working on green economy and green jobs issues until February 2025.