Michael Thomas (academic)

Thomas has published over 20 authored and edited books in these fields and is founding and lead editor of four international book series, Digital Education and Learning (publisher: Palgrave Macmillan), Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education (publisher: Palgrave Macmillan), Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching (publisher:Bloomsbury) and Advances in Virtual and Personal Learning Environments (publisher: IGI). He has authored 3 monographs and edited 26 books. Thomas was the founding editor-in-chief of the Scopus indexed International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments and since 2014 has been a member of the journal's International Advisory Board.

Thomas was project coordinator and principal investigator of the EU-funded CAMELOT Project on Language learning with machinima, a two-year project consisting of nine European Union partners that ran from December 2013 until November 2015; a partner in the Erasums+ VITAL project on learning analytics and online learning (2015–17; and coordinator of the EU GUINEVERE project (KA2 Strategic Partnership in Schools) on digital gaming in immersive environments (2017–19).

Thomas attended Collingwood Junior School, Norham High School and Tynemouth Sixth Form College. He has studied at Newcastle University, the University of Manchester, Lancaster University, Cardiff University, Wales, the University of the West of England and the University of Leicester in the U.K. and at Cornell University in the U.S.. He holds a Ph.D. in Critical and Cultural Theory from Newcastle University focusing on the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstructionism and post-modernism, and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster University which explored technology-mediated project-based learning. He was previously a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg in Germany (1998), Associate Professor (2002) and then Professor (2009) in English Communication at Nagoya University of Commerce & Business, Japan, before moving to the University of Central Lancashire in 2010 where he became Professor of Higher Education and Online Learning. Thomas has also held visiting or affiliated positions at Stuttgart University and Mannheim University in Germany, the University of Liverpool in the U.K., and Harvard University in the U.S.

Michael Thomas (born 1969) is research professor at Liverpool John Moores University working primarily in the field of digital education in relation to social justice, the educational implications of disadvantage, online and distance education, digitally mediated communication and higher education policy.