I have a position as Professor at the Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety. I'm also affiliated with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) and with the Centre for Middle Eastern Advanced Studies (CMES) at Lund University.

I have a career balanced between academia and practice working with a variety of international humanitarian and aid agencies and teaching, research and managing academic programmes at universities. I have engaged and, continue to, work with and advise organisations such as: The World Bank, Asia Development Bank, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, Sida, ActionAid, Swedish Red Cross, The Swedish Environment Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), The Swedish Statistics Bureau (SCB), and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency MSB. I undertook consultancy and operational work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States. Previously I was the course leader of the Masters in Disaster Management (MDMa) at the University of Copenhagen; and the Munich-Re Foundation Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University (UNU). I was the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) “Focus on local actors: the key to humanitarian effectiveness".

My current work and research focus on: Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction; climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states with a special focus on environmental migration and displacement; refugee decision-making and refugee integration in host societies; and organisations' capacity development.