A civil engineer with a doctorate in city planning, Sabine Barles is a Professor at the French Institute of City Planning (IFU, Université Paris-Est), a researcher in the Technology, Territory and Society Research Unit (LATTS), and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Her research work focuses on technology and the urban environment, with a perspective that is both contemporary and historical (eighteenth to twentieth centuries). She also directs the Interdisciplinary Program of Research on “City and Environment” (PIRVE, supported by the French National Center for Scientific Research