Professor David Sanderson

Speaker

David has over 30 years’ experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He worked for 12 years in NGO policy and management in all regions before joining academia in 2006. For eight years he was director of a UK university centre focusing on disasters and emergencies. 

Since 2009 he has held full Professorships in the UK, Norway and Australia, and visiting professorships in Spain, France and the USA (Harvard University, where he taught full time 2013-14). David has sat on several boards including the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Humanitarian Innovations Fund. He was editor in 2018 of the first State of the Humanitarian Shelter and Settlements report for the Global Shelter Cluster and between 2023-5 led AHURI’s inquiry into post-disaster housing policy. 

David holds a doctorate in resilience and disasters. In 2016 he was appointed the Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair of Architecture at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.