Science for Diplomacy: Collaboration in times of diplomatic tension

James Hammond is Professor of Geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London (UK). He was among the speakers of the 11th AAAS-TWAS Course on Science Diplomacy, which took place in Trieste, Italy, on 18-20 June 2024.
His research is focussed on using seismology to image magma beneath volcanic settings, with projects in East-Africa, the Chilean Andes and northeast China and the Korean Peninsula. He founded and leads the Mt. Paektu Research Centre: a group working to build international scientific collaborations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Through this work, he has led an almost 13-year continuous scientific engagement on Paektu Volcano with DPRK and Chinese scientists. This includes navigating complex and evolving international sanctions and geopolitics on the Korean Peninsula. He is currently a Natural Environmental Research Council Fellow, working with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to develop new projects on environmental hazards in the DPRK.