Department of Development Studies & Centre for Development, Environment and Policy

Professor Thomas Tanner

Key information

Roles
Department of Development Studies Professor of Climate and Society Centre for Development, Environment and Policy CeDEP Centre Director and Programme Convenor, Climate Change and Development Centre for Sustainable Finance Senior Fellow SOAS South Asia Institute Member
Qualifications
BA (Cambridge), MSc (LSE), PhD (University of Leicester)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
477
Email address
tt43@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
+44 (0) 20 7074 5166

Biography

Tom is Director of the SOAS Centre for Development, Environment and Policy (CeDEP) within the Department of Development Studies, coordinating research and online distance learning postgraduate programmes on climate change and sustainable development.

He is a development geographer with a background in environmental change, development studies, environmental economics and political science. He specialises in building resilience and adaptation to climate change through research, policy and practice. 

Tom’s research interests include climate change policy and planning, anticipatory decision-making, urban resilience, policy processes and political economy, and child-led approaches to resilience. He has extensive research experience in South Asia leading research partnership funded by ESRC, DFID, World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.

Tom is an Associate Editor of the academic journal Climate and Development and serves on the expert advisory body for the UN’s Race to Resilience initiative. He has authored numerous research articles (Google Scholar) as well as the leading textbook on Climate Change and Development (Routledge) and an edited book on incentivising Disaster Risk Management (Springer). His most recent book ”Resilience Reset” (Routledge) provides a critical analysis and future roadmap for tackling climate change and other shocks in urban areas.

Research interests

  • Climate policy
  • Climate adaptation
  • Urban resilience
  • Children and youth
  • Development cooperation

I welcome expressions of interest for PhD supervision in topics related to resilience and climate adaptation, particularly in relation to decision-making, policy-making and planning; children and youth; and international development cooperation.

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Michael Boyland Experiencing the 'everyday’ of climate activism: Narratives of the youth climate justice movement in the Philippines

Publications