Terry Cannon

Terry Cannon has been teaching and conducting research in development studies for nearly 50 years, with a major specialization in disaster risk. Most recently, he worked at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, where he taught in the Master of Science in Climate Change, Development, and Policy program. He is also an honorary professor at University College London in the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and teaches postgraduate courses on disaster and climate change at King’s College London. He has previously taught at the University of Copenhagen and many other universities.

In the early 2000s, he worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to develop their Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment approach. In 2009, he collaborated with Saleem Huq to establish the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University, Bangladesh. He was actively involved in the early development of ideas for community-based adaptation. This work supported research and capacity building for students, government, and nongovernmental organizations, including training courses on climate change and disaster reduction in Asia and Africa

Cannon is one of the co-authors of At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, one of the most widely cited and used books in the field (1994, 2004; Spanish edition, 1996; Japanese edition, 2011). In 2014, he co-authored and co-edited the IFRC World Disasters Report 2014: Focus on Culture and Risk (https://www.ifrc.org/document/world-disasters-report-2014).