Thomas Max Turnbull

Thomas has worked at the MPIWG since 2017. Following a collaborative project with Berlin’s House of World Cultures (HKW), he became a research scholar in Department I in 2020. In January 2024, he transferred to the Department on Knowledge Systems and Collective Life. Thomas completed his PhD at the University of Oxford School of Geography and the Environment in 2017. Before Oxford, he worked in energy policy in London. Thomas has held visiting roles at Leuphana University’s Institute for Media Cultures of Computer Simulation, Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, KTH Stockholm’s Center of Excellence for Anthropocene History, as well as teaching at the University of Oxford, University College London, and St Gallen University, where he teaches a course "Energy Histories, Climate Futures." In 2023, he joined an experiential education programme called The Mississippi River Open School for Kinship and Social Exchange in which participants paddled and sailed down the Mississippi River out into the Gulf of Mexico, visiting field sites, engaging with activists, ecologists, gardeners, herbalists, and academics.

Alongside the MPIWG, Thomas has been involved in a number of art and outreach projects: Mississippi. An Anthropocene River (2018-2019) at the HKW; The Ledger of the Sun (2022) with Jamie Allen at Oslo’s Architecture Triennale; The Driving Factor (2023) with Eliza Bertuzzo, Daniele Tognozzi, and Neli Wagner; and Fossile Energie, Fragile Zukunft (2024) at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven with curator Lena Reisner. In 2025, he is contributing to a book by artist Imani Jacqueline Brown.