Tom Bristow read English Literature at the University of Leicester from 1999–2003 and his PhD was awarded by the University of Edinburgh in 2008.
He has been a member of the Mellon Australian Observatory in the Environmental Humanities research programme, University of Sydney; editor of Philosophy Activism Nature (PAN); and former President of the Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture, Australia and New Zealand (ASLEC-ANZ).
He was an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at the University of Melbourne, Australia.