Dr Nick Thomson is a public health and human rights trained epidemiologist who spent 12 years working with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in northern Thailand on a HIV and Drug Use research program based within the Research Institute for Health Sciences, Chiang Mai University.

During that time Nick began specializing in understanding the intersection between security sectors, public health and civil society and the role of partnership towards enabling public health across the Mekong Sub Region in the context of infectious disease.

This work led to a long term consulting role with the UN working with police, health and civil society groups across South, South East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe to better understand how to support environments for infectious disease prevention and response in complex settings.

He is currently a research fellow with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he works with a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional program to better understand how to move from “War time to peace time in the context of illicit drug economies in Myanmar, Afghanistan and Colombia.”

Nick recently lead a Special Issue of the Lancet on Security and Health and joined the University’s Australia Pacific Security College where is a Senior Health Advisor working with the team to facilitate multi-agency discussions with security sector agencies in the Pacific and their counterparts in the health sector.