Alice Thomas

She joined Refugees International (RI) in 2010 to launch the Climate Displacement Program and advocate on behalf of vulnerable communities displaced by extreme weather and climate change. Since joining RI, Alice has conducted more than a dozen independent assessments of the protection and assistance needs of people displaced by climate-related disasters, including the 2016 drought in Zimbabwe, historic flooding and landslides in Myanmar in 2015, and Super-Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2014. She has presented her findings to high-level government and U.N. officials, and at numerous think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is also an expert advisor to the Platform on Disaster Displacement (Nansen Initiative) and a member of the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility, which provides technical support to state parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Prior to joining RI, Thomas was a staff attorney in the International Program at EarthJustice where she devised legal strategies to mitigate climate pollution and address climate impacts on vulnerable populations. From 2002 to 2006, she served as deputy director of the American Bar Association’s Asia Law Initiative where she oversaw environmental good governance programs in Asia. She has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Princeton University.