Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs and William Golding Senior Fellow of Brasenose College at the University of Oxford. He was Director of the Refugee Studies Centre between 2014 and 2017.

His research focuses on the politics and economics of refugee assistance and he has written extensively on migration and humanitarianism. ​His authored and co-authored books include Survival Migration (Cornell University Press, 2013), Refugee Economies (Oxford University Press, 2016), Mobilising the Diaspora: How Refugees Challenge Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System (Penguin, 2017). In addition to his academic publications, he has written for Foreign Affairs, the New York Times and the Guardian, and he has appeared on the BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN.

He has been honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, was named by Foreign Policy as one of the top 100 global thinkers of 2016 and has been listed by Thinkers50 in their top 30 emerging business influencers. His TED talks have been viewed by over 3 million people.

His latest book is The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies (Oxford University Press, 2021).