Peter Walker

After 25 years of field work in humanitarian crises around the world, Dr. Peter Walker, was appointed, in September 2002, as the Director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. At the Center he leads a team of 30 academics and practitioners working on policy and practice issues in the fields of humanitarian action, human security and human rights.

In 2007 Dr. Walker was made Rosenberg Professor of Nutrition and Human Security and in 2008 he received the American College of Nutrition's annual Humanitarian Award.
As Director of the Disaster Policy Department at the IFRC in the 1990s, Dr Walker was instrumental in championing the need to professionalize the disaster response business, developing the global Code of Conduct for disaster relief workers, lecturing on disaster response in a number of European universities and steering the development of the international Sphere standards, a major NGO and UN collaborative effort to develop universal competence standards in humanitarian assistance. In 1993 Dr Walker founded the annual World Disasters Report which has now become one of the standard reference texts in the humanitarian business.
In 2000 Dr Walker moved to Bangkok, Thailand, as Director for Red Cross programming across the SE Asia region, leaving to join Tufts university in 2002.
At the Feinstein Intentional Center Dr Walker is actively involved in research examining the future global drivers of humanitarian crises, the effectiveness of international humanitarian systems and the role of spirituality in recovery from crisis.
In the past decade Dr Walker has published in the academic and popular press on themes as diverse as the relationship between the military and humanitarian efforts, the use of local knowledge and skills in relief, the co-ordination of international relief programmes and the humanitarian effects of economic sanctions and climate change. His recent book, with Feinstein Center Faculty member Dr Dan Maxwell, Shaping the Humanitarian World, provides a robust history of humanitarianism linked to an inquiry into its future as a global venture.