Wolfson welcomes new Governing Body Fellow

We are delighted to welcome Tom Simpson to Wolfson and to the College’s Governing Body.

Tom is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government where he is also the Co-Chair of Executive Programmes and directs the Military Leadership and Judgment Programme.

Tom’s research focuses on a variety of issues in moral and political philosophy – especially on trust; issues around technology and security, such as the ethics of autonomous weapons, cyber-attacks, and the use of unconventional force; and on the nature of freedom. On trust, he has co-edited a collection of essays, The Philosophy of Trust (Oxford University Press, 2017), and published a monograph, Trust: A Philosophical Study (Oxford University Press, 2023). 

Tom teaches on a variety of courses on the Master of Public Policy, directs the Rising Public Leaders Programme, and leads sessions on Integrity in Public Life with practitioners from around the world, both senior civil servants and politicians. The quality of his teaching has been recognised with a Teaching Excellence Award by the University’s Social Sciences Division, while his ‘Red Alert’: North Korea Crisis Simulation won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Innovative Teaching and Assessment.

He has given evidence to UK Parliamentary committees on the UK’s drone policy; the balance between privacy and security in surveillance; the ethics of autonomous weapon systems; and on legislation in support of academic freedom. He has recently started a new project, Learning from the Right, which considers what the political right does and should stand for in differing contexts globally. This is funded by the Open Society Foundations.

Between degrees he was an officer with the Royal Marines Commandos for five years, serving in Northern Ireland; Baghdad, Iraq; and Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Previously Tom was at Cambridge, where he was a Research Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, and was educated (BA, MPhil, PhD). He has held visiting positions at MIT and the University of Notre Dame, and is an Associate Editor for the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs.

Tom said, ‘I am thrilled to be joining Wolfson and its thriving, multidisciplinary research community; I look forward to getting to know the College better, and to meeting students, Fellows and staff over the course of the academic year ahead.’