Kimberley Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Urban Studies and Director of the Climate Justice Field School at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her research on environmental justice and agrarian change in South and Southeast Asia examines the political economy of climate adaptation, the relational production of security and insecurity, and the vulnerabilizing effects of water infrastructure at multiple scales. 

This work has been supported through funding from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the Institute for Human Geography, and has appeared in a range of journal outlets, including Global Environmental Change, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Political Geography, Development and Change, and WiRES Climate Change. 

As a KITLV Visiting Fellow, she will build on her work documenting the processes by which powerful actors frame and pursue climate change adaptation in the majority world as profitable investment opportunities. In her developing manuscript, case studies across Asia demonstrate how the promotion of agrarian commodities as triple-bottom line solutions amounts to little more than the commodification of climate vulnerability itself.