He is a professor of international environmental and development studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
He researches material and discursive aspects of land-use conflicts and environmental change, including the ‘desertification’ of the West African Sahel, violent conflicts and climate change.
[1] According to Google Scholar he has been cited around 8,000 times in academic literature and has an h-index of 42.
[2] He received the Article of the Year – Scandinavian University Press Academic Journal Prize in 2009.
[3] In 2022 he received a European Research Council Advanced Grant for a project that seeks to determine the causes of violent conflict and migration in the Sahel.