Contributor: Thomas Homer-Dixon

International Advisory Board

The Encyclopedia of Earth

Thomas Homer-Dixon is Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is known internationally for his research projects on the links between environmental stress and violence in developing countries, threats to global security in the 21st century, and on how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological, and technological change. Dr. Dixon led the Project on Environment, Population, and Security, a joint effort with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the Project on Environmental Scarcities, State Capacity, and Civil Violence, undertaken with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The latter project focused on the links between environmental stress and weakened states in poor countries. Dr. Homer-Dixon’s books include The Ingenuity Gap (Knopf, 2000), which won the 2001 Governor General’s Non-fiction Award, and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton University Press, 1999).

Dr. Homer-Dixon holds a B.A. in political science from Carleton University and Ph.D. from MIT in international relations and defense and arms control policy.