UNU RECTOR APPOINTS NEW SENIOR ACADEMIC STAFF
Prof. Hans van Ginkel, Rector of the United Nations University (UNU), officially announced today the appointment of two new Vice-Rectors and a Senior Adviser. Prof. Motoyuki Suzuki, an environmental engineering specialist, Prof. Ramesh Thakur, a political scientist and peace researcher, and Prof. Hideo Sato, an international relations expert, will join Rector van Ginkel and Vice-Rector Abraham Besrat to form the UNU Centre’s senior academic staff.The new appointees bring considerable expertise to their new positions and will help strengthen the strategic management function of the UNU Centre located in Tokyo.
Prof. Suzuki is currently the Director-General of the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo and has been professor of environmental and chemical engineering for more than 30 years. He also serves as President of the Japan Society on Water Environment, the International Adsorption Society and other academic societies. He is the author of several publications on environmental engineering, many of which focus on sustainable development. Prof. Suzuki received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Tokyo.
Indian-born Prof. Thakur is presently head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University and is a member of Australia’s National Consultative Committee on Peace and Disarmament. Before moving to Australia, he spent 16 years in New Zealand as a professor at the University of Otago. He has written or edited 13 books and published numerous journal articles. Prof. Thakur did his undergraduate studies in India at the University of Calcutta and received a Ph.D. in political studies from Queen’s University in Canada.
Prof. Sato, who has been with the University of Tsukuba since 1982, is now the President of the Japan Association of International Relations. He was the founding Dean of the University of Tsukuba’s Graduate School of International Political Economy, an associate professor of political science at Yale University, and a research associate at the Brookings Institution. He has authored many books and articles on foreign policy and has been actively involved in advisory activities for Japanese governmental and private organizations. Prof. Sato did his undergraduate studies in Japan at the International Christian University and received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.
Professors Suzuki and Thakur have been appointed as Vice-Rectors; Prof. Sato as Senior Adviser to the Rector. They will formally join the UNU on 1 April 1998.
For further information on these appointments and requests for interviews, please contact:
The UNU Public Affairs Section:
- Tel.: (03) 5467-1243 or -1246
Fax: (03)3406-7346
