After completing a PhD research project on the legacies of civil war and rebellion in post-war politics in Burundi, Tomas Van Acker is currently interested in understanding how climate change and climate policies affect governance and conflict processes.

He is the coordinator of the Governance in Conflict Network (GIC), which unites researchers and institutes around a shared agenda of fieldwork-based research on governance, conflict and development.

As a lecturer, he teaches introductory courses to critical development studies and political ethnography, as well as a seminar on climate change and the politics of development.