Dr. Ronald A. Morse, held the Terasaki Chair from 2001-2004.  Before joining UCLA, he was a Professor in the International School of Economics and Business Administration at Reitaku University in Tokyo.  Morse is both a scholar and practitioner.  He is also a regular contributor to the Japan Times, Sekai Shuho magazine, and the Seiron Column of the Sankei Shimbun.  While in Tokyo, he also published the first Japanese language internet-focused college textbook on American politics.

Professor Morse studied Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley and has his Ph.D.in Japanese history from Princeton University.  His dissertation focused on the Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio and in 1975, Morse published the first translation of Yanagita’s literary classic The Legends of Tono.  Morse served in the U.S. Defense, State, and Energy Departments before becoming the head of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.  He became a special assistant to the Librarian of Congress before helping to establish a think tank in Washington, D.C.  Before heading out to Tokyo in 1996, he was the director of International Development for the University of Maryland, College Park.

Professor Morse taught classes the following classes during his tenure at UCLA: History 187C: Modern Japan, 1868 to the Present; and Policy Study 190: The Politics of Culture: Japan 1945 to 2001.