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The Japan Foundation Awards

Makoto Ooka

The Japan Foundation Special Prizes

The Old Japan Students' Association, Thailand (OJSAT)
"Japanese Mothers for Foreign Students" Movement of the Tokyo YWCA
Warsaw University, Oriental Studies Institute, Department of Japanese and Korean Studies

Gerald L. Curtis (U.S.A)
(Burgess Professor of Political Science, Columbia University)

One of the world's most distinguished political scientists knowledgeable about Japan,
Dr. Curtis has made notable contributions to cultural exchange and mutual understanding across Japan, the United States, and other countries and to training outstanding young scholars. He is a leading authority on Japan's policy making processes whose analyses of Japanese politics are insightful and penetrating and whose commentaries in the mass media in both Japan and the United States have contributed greatly to fostering deeper mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.

Brief Personal History

1962	B.A., Department of Social Sciences, University of New Mexico
1964	M.A., Department of Political Science, Columbia University
1964-65	Studied at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies, Tokyo
1968	Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Columbia University
1969	Ph.D., Department of Political Science, Columbia University
1972	Assistant Professor Department of Political Science, Columbia University
1973-1991	Director, East Asian Institute, Columbia University (1973-75, 1977-84, 1987-91)
1974	Associate Professor, Columbia University
1974-77	Chairman, Joint Committee on Japanese Studies, Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies
1975-76	Research Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs
1977-79	Member, American Advisory Committee, The Japan Foundation
1982-83	Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, Keio University
1991-2000	Member of the Advisory Council, Center for Global Partnership
1998-	Burgess Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
2000-	Visiting Professor, Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies
2001	Visiting Professor, College de France

Dr. Curtis is columnist and advisor to the Chunichi and Tokyo Shimbun, a member of the Board of Trustees of the US-Japan Foundation, Senior Advisor to Newsweek for Newsweek Japan and Newsweek Korea.
He has served as director of the US-Japan Parliamentary Exchange Program, member of the Trilateral Commission, coordinator of the Shimoda Conferences on US-Japan relations. Cited by Newsweek as one of the ten leading scholars on Asia in the United States.

Author of numerous books including Election Campaigning Japanese Style (1971), Japanese-American Relations in the Seventies (editor, 1971), The Japanese Way of Politics (1987,Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize, 1989), Doken Kokka Nippon (with Ishikawa Masumi, 1984), Nihon no Seiji O Doo Miru Ka (1995), The Logic of Japanese Politics (2000), Policymaking in Japan: Defining the Role of Politicians (editor, 2002).