Dr Thong Tran is an Honorary Lecturer at Fenner School of Environment and Society, College of Systems and Society, The Australian National University, where he obtained his PhD in Human Ecology in 2017. His research agenda focuses on climate-development dynamics and sustainability in mainland Southeast Asia. He works on interdisciplinary areas of environmental governance with a particular focus on (transboundary) environmental commons, rural agricultural innovations, climate change adaptation, social learning, livelihood resilience, environmental justice, and institutional change. From January 2018 to May 2021, he was a Research Fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, working on transboundary water challenges driven by upstream hydropower development and climate change in the Mekong region. From August 2022 to May 2024, he was a Research Fellow (Human Geography) at School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, engaging in an ACIAR-funded project "Next generation agricultural extension: Social relations for practice change" led by Associate Professor Brian Robert Cook. The project aimed to reconceptualise agricultural extension as social relations and develop a social model of agricultural extension, focusing on Battambang and Pailin provinces in Cambodia.

At present, he is co-leading the project "Between vulnerability and resilience: Hydrosocial and agrarian transitions in the Mekong Delta from An Giang Province, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia," funded by Henry Luce Foundation in collaboration with East-West Centre, US, and Asian Vision Institute, Cambodia. 

Dr Thong Tran serves as an Associate Editor for Society and Natural Resources and Development in Practice. He also sits on the Editorial Board of Journal of Flood Risk Management.