Professor Emma Tompkins

Professor Emma Tompkins has been researching human adaptations to environmental change and and shocks for 30 years. Over the last 20 years, she has focussed on how people can and are adapting to past climate and weather hazards, as well as emergent environmental and climatic risks. Most recently she has been assessing what adaptations are most effective  in the context of multiple stressors, how we can assess global levels of adaptation, and how people are adapting in real-time to the nuisance seaweed (sargassum spp.) affecting the tropical Atlantic.

She has been a lead author for the IPCC (AR5, Chap 29. Small Islands), as well as a contributing author to other Assessment Reports. She has contributed to the first and third UK Climate Change Risk Assessments in 2012 and 2022. She has degrees in economics, environmental economics and environmental science, and has graduated from Universities of Leicester, London and East Anglia. 

Prizes

• SUSU Academic Awards 2018: Best Academic Support (Highly Commended) (2018)
• SUSU Academic Awards 2018: Most engaging lecturer (Nominated) (2018)
• SUSU Academic Awards 2018: Best academic feedback (Nominated) (2018)
• SUSU Academic Awards 2023: Best Academic Support FELS. (Winner) (2023)
• VC Awards 2023 for Research Impact (Shortlisted finalist) (2023)
• SUSU Academic Awards 2024: Best Pastoral Support (nominated) (2024)
• SUSU Academic Awards 2021: Best academic support (Nominated) (2021)