Victor Bulmer-Thomas CMG OBE is a British academic who has specialised in Latin America and the Caribbean. Born in London, his first experience of the Americas was as a V.S.O. in Belize (1966/7), where he taught several of the future leaders of the country. He studied at New College, Oxford University for his undergraduate degree, where he obtained a first. In 1975 he graduated with a PhD from St Antony's College, Oxford, with an original dissertation on Costa Rica where he pioneered the concept of constructing databases from primary sources and applying them to Latin American economic history. While at university, he became involved in left-wing student politics.