Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration, fellow of St. Cross College Oxford, and Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration. He holds an M.Phil and D.Phil from the University of Oxford, an M.Sc from the University of London, and an M.A from the University of Edinburgh. He was previously Lecturer at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol and Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford. Before coming to academia, Tom worked as a development practitioner concerned with the education sector in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tom specializes in the ethnographic and historical study of humanitarian relief and its impact on the lives of refugees. He is currently finishing a five-year project on humanitarian nutrition, whose results will appear in a monograph entitled On an Empty Stomach: the Humanitarian Approach to Hunger. He is also embarking on a new project concerning disaster shelter, with particular attention on encampment and refugee housing. His work has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals including Third World Quarterly, the Journal of Refugee Studies, Refugee Survey Quarterly and Disasters.