James Thompson is professor of applied and social theater and associate dean for external relations in the Faculty of Humanities. He is executive director of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute and also directs the In Place of War project - a research program funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Leverhulme Trust on performance and war. He was the co-founder of the Theater in Prisons and Probation (TIPP) Centre and served as its director until 1999. Professor Thompson was a Harkness Fellow based at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in the University of Texas and then a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Drama Department. He has run applied theater programs and researched theater projects in the UK, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the US.