Peter Sammonds

Peter Sammonds is Professor of Geophysics and Climate Risks at University College London (UCL). He is a researcher, teacher and mentor, working at the interface of natural and social sciences on hazard risks and disasters. Believing in the importance of first-hand experience, he has led research amongst Indigenous people in a Himalayan conflict zone, and joined the first foreign team permitted into the Fukushima nuclear plant following the Tohoku tsunami.

Peter was the founding Director and first Head of Department of the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (now Department) and established its popular BSc Global Humanitarian Studies programme. He has held prestigious fellowships in the U.K., Japan and China, advised governments, worked on the Lancet Commission on Migration and Health. and was the Gender and Intersectionality Ambassador for a global resilience network.

He has a house in a national park where he restoring its Victorian waterwheel and enjoys the surrounding temperate rain forest.