Thomas J. Wilbanks
Corporate Research Fellow
Thomas J. Wilbanks is a Corporate Research Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and leads the Laboratory's Global Change and Developing Country Programs. A past President of the Association of American Geographers, he conducts research on such issues as sustainable development, energy and environmental technology and policy, responses to global climate change, and the role of geographical scale in all of these regards. Co-edited recent books include Global Change and Local Places (2003), Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism (2003), and Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Linking Global Science and Local Knowledge (2006). Wilbanks is Chair of the National Research Council's Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change and a member of a number of other NAS/NRC boards and panels. In recent years, he has been Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Chapter 7 (Industry, Settlement, and Society), Coordinating Lead Author for the Climate Change Science Program's Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP) 4.5 (Effects of Climate Change on Energy Production and Use in the United States), and Lead Author for one of three sections (Effects of Global Change on Human Settlements) of SAP 4.6 (Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems).