Her full-time humanitarian service began as a first responder following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, where she worked at Ground Zero for nine months and founded Third Wave Volunteers. What began as a grassroots response has grown into a global network of more than 30,000 first responder volunteers supporting disaster relief, displaced communities, medical and telehealth programs, search and rescue, disaster preparedness, clean water initiatives, resilience hubs, and solar lighting in underserved areas around the world.

Over the course of her humanitarian career, Thompson has responded to natural disasters, wars, refugee crises, pandemics, and humanitarian emergencies across the globe. Her work has included the Syrian, Afghan, Venezuelan, and Ukrainian refugee crises; the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal; hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and wildfires throughout the United States and Caribbean; and the devastating 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka.

In Ukraine, Thompson and Third Wave Volunteers have worked on the front lines of the war, helping evacuate special-needs orphans and families from red zones, delivering food and humanitarian aid to frontline villages, and training thousands of civilians in combat medic skills designed to save lives.

Following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Thompson managed a 75,000-person internally displaced persons camp and field hospital, working alongside Sean Penn, U.S. Army General Simeon Trombitas, the 82nd Airborne, the CDC, and United Nations leadership. She later co-founded We Advance, a gender-based violence clinic serving women and girls in Cité Soleil, and volunteered during Haiti’s deadly cholera outbreak.

Thompson was also appointed the first official Ambassador to the Haitian Ministry of Environment, where her work focused on reforestation, clean water, sustainable energy, and food security. She helped oversee the planting of more than 1.5 million canopy and food trees and supported the distribution of seeds to more than 25,000 farmers following Hurricane Matthew. In 2016, she represented Haiti at the United Nations COP22 Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh and later assisted efforts to ratify the Paris Agreement in the Haitian Parliament.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Thompson became known as “The Angel of Galle” for her humanitarian work in Sri Lanka, where she managed a field hospital and helped oversee the rebuilding of a hospital, school, and village. She later co-founded CTEC, the country’s first Community Tsunami Early-Warning Disaster Center and children’s learning museum, helping protect hundreds of coastal communities.

During the Syrian refugee crisis, Thompson spent years volunteering on the island of Lesvos, Greece, where she helped rescue tens of thousands of refugees arriving by sea and supported the delivery of more than 100,000 solar lights to refugee camps.

Across the United States and Caribbean, she has led and supported disaster response efforts following Hurricanes Katrina, Matthew, Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, Florence, Dorian, Laura, Ida, Fiona, Ian, and others. Following Hurricane Irma, she co-founded one of Miami’s first Community Emergency Operations Centers in a vulnerable community, bringing together more than 180 local organizations to provide aid, food programs, emergency response training, and disaster preparedness.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Third Wave Volunteers launched the “Women in White Masks” initiative, delivering more than two million N95 masks across all 50 states and to thousands of underserved communities, nursing homes, prisons, tribal nations, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Peru, and Haiti.

Thompson has received numerous honors for her humanitarian service. She was recognized as the 2026 Australian of the Year N.S.W. and is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. Her honors also include the Order of Australia, the Medal of Excellence from U.S. Southern Command and the 82nd Airborne, the Paul Harris Award from Rotary International, the Dr. Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award, the Governor’s Hurricane Service Agency Award, the Hope Prize at TEDx, the Rethink Energy Florida Award, and recognition as Woman of Peace.

She holds a Doctorate of Letters in the Humanities and has served on the Advisory Board of the United Nations Chaplains Association and the board of MACtown, an organization supporting people with disabilities.

Her award-winning documentary, The Third Wave, chronicles her humanitarian work following the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in a presidential jury screening presented by Sean Penn and Bono. She later chronicled the experience in her book, The Third Wave: A Volunteer Story.

With humility, urgency, and a deep belief in the power of service, Thompson inspires audiences to recognize the role each person can play in creating change. Whether speaking about leadership, resilience, humanitarian action, disaster response, or service, her message is grounded in a simple principle: “Everyone’s needed.”

As Thompson says, “It’s easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but its Leadership to be at the wrong place at the right time.” Read Less ^