Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration, fellow of St Cross College and Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration. He specialises in the ethnographic and historical study of humanitarian relief and its impact on the lives of refugees.

He holds an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, and was previously a Lecturer at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol and Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Tom’s work on humanitarianism has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including American Ethnologist, Social Studies of Science, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. His book on the history of humanitarian nutrition, entitled On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief, is published by Cornell University Press. 

Before coming to academia, Tom worked as a development practitioner in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Link to BIO