Tom Hilde holds a PhD in Philosophy from Pennsylvania State University and is currently Associate Research Professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is Director of Peru and Indonesia Programs; Senior Affiliate, Center for Global Sustainability; Senior Fellow, Center for International and Security Studies. His research involves conceptual and normative analysis and evaluation of complex adaptive social-ecological systems, and adaptive institutions and governance in the areas of international development and environmental policy and ethics/justice, democracy and human rights, climate change adaptation and land-use change. He teaches a course that travels to Bali and the jungle of Sumatra to study land-use change and indigenous and local ecosystem management; a course in the Peruvian Amazon that investigates illegal gold mining, deforestation, and labor migration; and graduate courses on environment and international development. His books include The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism and On Torture and he is author of a number of publications in philosophy, ethics, and policy.