People

Leif-Eric EASLEY is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in East Asia international relations at the Harvard University Department of Government.  His dissertation presents a theory of national identity, government-to-government trust, and security cooperation applied to relations among Japan, Korea, China and the United States.  Mr. Easley's research includes extensive fieldwork in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing.  He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the University of Southern California's Korean Studies Institute, and a Kelly Fellow with the Pacific Forum-Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Mr. Easley completed his BA in Political Science with a minor in mathematics at UCLA where he graduated summa cum laude and senior of the year with a thesis on Theater Missile Defense in East Asia.  He was a long-time affiliate of the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) and was Japan area editor for the Harvard Asia Quarterly.  He served as a teaching fellow at Harvard in the subjects of Asian International Relations and American Foreign Policy and received an outstanding teaching award.  He was also the advisor for a senior thesis on historical memory and foreign policy in Asia.

Mr. Easley regularly speaks at international conferences and is actively involved in high level U.S.-Asia exchanges (Track II diplomacy) as a Pacific Forum "Young Leader."  His research appears in a variety of academic journals, supplemented by commentaries in major newspapers.  Publications available at www.fas.harvard.edu/~easley/publications.html.