James Hall, (born May 6, 1968) is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks and former director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. He is director of research at the School of Geography and the Environment, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Engineering Science and Fellow of Linacre College. Hall is a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, and is chair of the Science and Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009-2019. He was appointed as Vice-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2021 with a view to become President in 2024. Career Hall was born in Sidcup, England and studied civil engineering at the University of Bristol, with a stage at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chausses before graduating in 1990. He was a civil engineer with Taylor Woodrow Construction from 1987 to 1990 and then served with VSO in Guyana from 1991 to 1993 working on flood protection and drainage projects. He worked with water specialist HR Wallingford from 1993 to 1995 before returning to Bristol University to undertake a PhD in engineering systems and uncertainty analysis which he completed in 1999. He was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Post-doctoral Research Fellowship from 1999 to 2004 and became reader in civil engineering systems at the University of Bristol. In 2004, he was appointed as the inaugural Professor of Earth Systems Engineering at Newcastle University where he served until 2011. He represented Newcastle University as a member of the Tyndall Centre Consortium, leading the centre's cities research programme and became deputy director of the Tyndall Centre. He was appointed director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University and was instrumental in the establishment of the Oxford Networks for the Environment (ONE) which bring together research in the University of Oxford on energy, climate, water, biodiversity and food. In 2018, he stood down as director of the Environmental Change, and in 2020 he became director of research in the School of Geography and the Environment. Research He researches risk analysis and decision-making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to