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Professor James Ford

Professor James Ford

  • Position: Priestley Chair in Climate Adaptation
  • Areas of expertise: Climate change vulnerability & adaptation; Arctic; Indigenous peoples; community based research; adaptation tracking
  • Email: J.Ford2@leeds.ac.uk
  • Location: 10.23 Priestley Building
  • Website: Twitter | Googlescholar | ORCID

Profile

I am a Professor and Priestley Chair in Climate Adaptation at the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures. My research focuses on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, and I work closely with Indigenous communities in the Arctic and globally with a major focus on health and well-being, food security, wildfires, and resource management. My work in the Arctic is funded through an ERC Advanced Grant which is weaving together science and Indigenous Knowledge to create an ethnoclimatology of climate risk. I also Co-Chair the NFRF funded Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON) which is working with Indigenous communities across the Global South and North to understand the climate-food-health nexus. At a global to regional scale, I am active in research tracking climate adaptation progress, including using big data and machine learning.

Since 2015 I have been editor-in-chief at Regional Environmental Change, and I have served as a lead author on national and international climate assessments including the IPCCs Special Report on 1.5C of warming and associated Summary for Policy Makers, and the Arctic Council’s Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic assessment. I currently serve on the Scientific Advisory Group to UNEPs GEO-7 Assessment, and I am member of the International Arctic Science Committee’s Social and Human Working Group. I have a wealth of experience consulting for international organisations and government, and in 2019 helped lead an assessment of climate programming for the International Atomic Energy Agency. I have published >290 peer reviewed articles and in 2021 I was ranked 49th in the Reuters Hot List of 1,000 top climate scientists globally.

Research interests

Climate change; Vulnerability; Resilience; Risk; Adaptation; Indigenous Peoples; Arctic

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • PhD, Geography
  • MSc, Environmnental Change
  • BA, Geography

Student education

I teach on modules for the Climate Futures MSc and GEOG1000 (Planet Under Threat)

Research groups and institutes

  • Climate Change Adaptation, Vulnerability and Services
  • Sustainability Research Institute

Current postgraduate researchers

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>