Sonja Thielges

Sonja Thielges is Programme Director for Industrial Transformation (Focus Germany) at Agora Industry. Her work focuses on the opportunities and challenges of industrial transformation in Germany.

Before joining Agora in July 2026, she worked in the Climate and Energy Policy Research Cluster at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin and at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS, formerly IASS) in Potsdam. Her research and consultancy work has centred on industrial transformation, bilateral and plurilateral cooperation in the fields of climate, energy and industrial policy, as well as German and US climate and energy foreign policy.

Sonja Thielges studied North American Studies, Political Science and Modern History in Berlin and Bloomington, Indiana, and obtained her PhD in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin. She is affiliated with the American-German Institute (AGI) in Washington, DC, as a Non-Resident Geoeconomics Fellow.