As a Carsey Institute faculty fellow, Thomas (Tom) Safford is investigating community resilience to social and environmental concerns in coastal Maine and Washington State as a part of Carsey’s Communities and the Environment in Rural America (CERA) initiative. He is also leading a new partnership between Carsey and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), in collaboration with Native American tribes in New Mexico and Washington, to investigate emerging social and environmental problems while also developing tribal capacity to respond to these challenges.

Tom is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on analyzing inter-organizational relationships and understanding the roles different public and private sector organizations play in environmental management. He has conducted applied sociological research and developed methods for integrating social and natural science information to support policy making and natural resource management for both the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). His prior research appears in such journals as Society and Natural Resources and Coastal Management. Tom received his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina, his master's degree from Stanford University, and his doctorate degree from Cornell University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the NOAA Coastal Services Center and the NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center from 2004 to 2006.