In January 2006, a new nine-member Board of Trustees will officially take over the top management of SEASREP, in place of the Foundation. The Board will set policy and future directions of the organization. Henceforth, the Manila Secretariat will be known as the SEASREP Foundation.
Dr. Diana Wong was educated in Singapore and Germany and has done field research in Malaysia, West Africa and Germany. Trained in development sociology, her research interests have since widened to include issues of migration, memory and religion. Some of her publications include Peasants in the Making: Malaysia's Green Revolution (ISEAS, 1986) and "The Rumour of Trafficking: Borders, Illegal Migration and the Sovereignty of the Nation-State" (University of Illinois Press, 2005). She is currently Visiting Fellow at the Institut Kajian Malaysian dan Antarabangsa (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, where she also teaches sociology, and Vice President of the Malaysian Social Science Association.
Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Vietnam National University (Hanoi), where he is Deputy Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. As a specialist in the fields of labor, education, migration, ethnic minorities, and rural development, Dr. Chinh has been consultant to various international organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, Save the Children, United Nations Development Program, and the World Health Organization. He earned his master’s degree from the Center for Asian Studies and his PhD from the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, both in the University of Amsterdam.
Dr. Mya Than is currently Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS) in Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and Associate Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). He was a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Economics in Yangon. His researches focus on regional and sub-regional cooperation and economic and social development in Southeast Asia. His recent publications include Myanmar in ASEAN: Regional Cooperation Experience (ISEAS, 2005), and “Trade Liberalization in the GMS Nations”, in Economic and Non-traditional Security Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (KAS, 2005). He earned both his M.Sc. (Management in Agriculture) and PhD degrees from the University of Agriculture in Prague.
Dr. Thanet Aphornsuvan is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Southeast Asian Studies Program at Thammasat University. He has had extensive international teaching and research experiences over the years – as Visiting Associate Professor at the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore; Visiting Professor at the Southeast Asian Studies Program of UCLA; Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University; and Lecturer at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Dr. Thanet earned his MA and PhD degrees both at the Binghamton University, USA.
Dr. Yekti Maunati is the Director of the Research Center for Regional Resources, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PSDR-LIPI). Her research interests are women, migration, ethnicity, and identity. Trained in sociology and anthropology, she obtained her M.A. degree from Monash University and Ph.D. from La Trobe University.
Dr. Yoneo Ishii is President of The National Institutes for the Humanities. He taught Southeast Asian History at Kyoto University (1965-1990), where he also served as director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (1985-1990). He then became professor of Southeast Asian History at Sophia University (1990-1997), and became the chair of the Japan UNESCO National Commission from 1998-1999, and President of Kanda University of International Studies. His major publications in English include Thailand: A Rice-growing Society; Sangha, State and Society: Thai Buddhism in History; and Junk Trade from Southeast Asia.
Dr. Ruth McVey is Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asian Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She received her PhD in Government at Cornell University in 1961 and subsequently held research and teaching positions at Yale University, the Center for International Studies at MIT, Cornell University, and University of London. Among her principal publications are: The Rise of Indonesian Communism; Southeast Asian Transitions; Southeast Asian Capitalists; and Money and Power in Provincial Thailand.
