Greetings from Jim Williams, Visiting Scholar at GSID

I have been asked to prepare a self-introduction to the GSID community. I have the honor of being a visiting scholar at GSID from October 2009 to March 2010. It is wonderful to be a member of your community and to meet you, face to face and virtually. I am an associate professor of international education and international affairs at George Washington University, Washington DC, where I serve as director of the school’s graduate program in International Education. My primary academic home is in GWU’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development, but I also have an appointment in the Elliott School of International Affairs. It is a particular pleasure to have this research opportunity at Nagoya University, as I lived in Japan for several years a number of years ago. Here at GSID, I am working with Prof. Kitamura to examine models of cooperation and development among higher education institutions in Asia. I am attending two seminars led by Profs. Okada, Yamada, and Kitamura, which give me the chance to see your research. I hope we can build cooperative links between the faculty and students at the two universities.

My doctorate is from Harvard University, and my research interests include—approaches and modalities of education system reform in developing countries; effects of education on social cohesion and fragility in post-conflict environments; and multi-level modeling of the predictors of socio-economic effects in global context. I have worked in a number of countries in Africa and Asia, including Liberia, Ghana, Malawi, Botswana, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Cambodia, and Azerbaijan. I am co-author of four books and numerous articles and technical reports. Prior to GWU, I worked at Obirin University, Ohio University, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Harvard Institute for International Development. In my free time, I enjoy long-distance bicycling and I dream of the long distances I used to jog. I hope to have the chance to talk with many of you and hope you will let me know what you are up to.

Jim Williams