Thomas Bamforth
Higher Degree Researcher (PhD)
Universtiy of Sydney
| Location | Melbourne, Australia |
| Gender and Title | Male, Mr |
| tbam0578@uni.sydney.edu.au | |
| Telephone | 0415253630 |
| Website | |
| Bio | SUMMARY: I am a humanitarian aid worker and higher degree (PhD) researcher in humanitarian studies at Sydney University. I have twenty years’ experience in humanitarian leadership, coordination, operations management, policy and advocacy across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific with Red Cross/Red Crescent, NGOs, and UN Agencies. I am an Honorary Fellow in Anthropology & Development Studies at Melbourne University and have published widely on humanitarian issues. I am currently researching the role of memoir in humanitarian history. DETAIL: My professional humanitarian and development experience includes crisis response, humanitarian coordination & leadership, humanitarian representation and diplomacy, capacity development, community- based risk reduction and program design, management, and financial management. I have technical experience in shelter, protection, and camp management and a comprehensive knowledge of humanitarian standards and principles. I have nearly twenty years of progressively responsible leadership experience with NGOs, Red Cross Movement, United Nations, and thinktanks working in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Pacific in post-disaster, conflict and fragile country contexts. My previous roles have included working with CARE International (Türkiye), UNHCR, IFRC, Habitat for Humanity Australia, the Australian Red Cross, IOM (UN Migration Agency), and the Norwegian Refugee Council. I have extensive experience working in fragile states and in conflict and have led emergency response teams in more than ten emergencies, including four system-wide responses (the highest level of global humanitarian response). I have held senior humanitarian response and coordination roles in Türkiye (in response to the recent earthquakes), Syria, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Philippines, Mozambique, Sudan (Darfur States), and across the Pacific Region. My academic experience includes undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. I have been a Visiting Professor in the Master of Disaster, Development and Design course in RMIT University’s Faculty of Architecture as well as a member and co-chair of the course committee as an industry representative. Prior to this, I designed and taught a master’s level course, ‘Humanitarian Policy and Action’, in the Master of International Development Program at La Trobe University and was a Program Director at the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, Deakin University. I am currently an Honorary Fellow in Anthropology & Development Studies at Melbourne University. I have diverse, extensive, and ongoing research interests in humanitarianism and development. These include a track record of publication and public engagement. I have published academic articles, book chapters and have led extensive research process for industry publications. I have a track record of public commentary in leading news outlets (including The Age, Guardian, DevPolicy). My writing includes two commercially successful books on humanitarian and development themes: Deep Field: Dispatches from the frontlines of Aid Relief (Hardie Grant, 2014) and Rising Tide: among the islands and atolls of the Pacific Ocean (Hardie Grant 2019). These first-person, participant-observer accounts have also appeared in leading literary magazines including Granta, Griffith Review, Australian Book Review and Meanjin. My ongoing research and writing interests draw on my professional experience and include humanitarian reform and the localisation of assistance, politics of humanitarian assistance in the Syria crisis, climate change and small island developing states in the Pacific and managing forced displacement and protracted crises. My PhD relates to role of humanitarian memoir in forming humanitarian knowledge and practice. |