Gerald Curtis (Ph.D., Columbia, 1968) is Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and concurrently Visiting Professor at Waseda University and Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Economic Studies, Tokyo,  and the Tokyo Foundation. He served as Director of  Columbia's Weatherhead East Asian Institute for a total of twelve years between 1974 and 1990. Professor Curtis is the author of The Logic of Japanese Politics, The Japanese Way of Politics, Election Campaigning Japanese Style, and numerous other books and articles written in both English and Japanese and translated into Chinese, Korean, Thai and other languages. His most recent book, written in Japanese and published in April 2008, is Seiji to Sanma-Nihon to Kurashite 45 nen (Politics and Sanma: 45 Years Living with Japan), published by Nikkei BP.

Professor Curtis has held appointments at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London; the College de France, Paris; the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore; and in Tokyo at Keio and Tokyo University, the Research Institute for Economy, Trade and Industry, the Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies, and the International Institute of Economic Studies.  He is a columnist for the Tokyo/Chunichi Shimbun, member of the Board of Directors of the US-Japan Foundation, member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations and has served as Special Advisor to Newsweek for its Japanese and Korean language editions, the International Advisory Board of the Asahi Shimbun, the Advisory Council for the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation, and as Director of the US-Japan Parliamentary Exchange Program.

Professor Curtis is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors including the Chunichi Shimbun Special Achievement Award in 2001 and the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 1989 for the best book on Japanese politics. In 2001 he was awarded the distinguished Japan Foundation Award in a ceremony held in the presence of the Crown Prince and Princess and followed by an audience with the Emperor.  In 2004 Professor Curtis was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese government. Professor Curtis received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1969 and he has been on the Columbia University faculty since 1968.