William W. Grimes
Department of International
Relations
Boston University
152 Bay State Rd.
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 353-9420
(617) 353-9290 (fax)
I am the Chair of
the Department of International Relations at
Boston University, where I am also a Professor
of International Relations and Political
Science and previously served as served as Associate Chair and Director of
Graduate Studies in International Relations. I have taught at BU since 1996 and
received tenure in 2003. In 2008, I helped to found the Boston University Center for the Study of Asia,
and served as its first Director until 2010. I have also been active in the
Japanese studies community at Harvard, where I am affiliated with the Program on US-Japan Relations
and Reischauer Institute of Japanese
Studies and served for nine years as the faculty coordinator of the
Reischauer InstituteÕs Contemporary Japanese Politics Study Group.
The main focus of
both my research and teaching is East Asian political economy. My
interest in the region was first sparked when I moved to Tokyo, Japan with my
family at the age of 13. I attended the American School in Japan for four
years, then returned to the United States to attend Yale University, where I
majored in East Asian Studies, while spending my summers back in Tokyo.
After another year back in Tokyo, during which I studied Japanese and had
part-time jobs in the office of Representative Kazuo Aichi (a Dietmember from
Sendai) and at the research institute of the Ministry of International Trade
and Industry, I entered graduate school at Princeton University, earning an MPA
in International Relations (with a focus on economics) and a PhD in
Politics. I spent another year in Japan during that time, doing fieldwork
on my dissertation (ÒFrom the Plaza to the Bubble: JapanÕs Response to
International Economic Policy Coordination, 1985-88Ó) at the University of
Tokyo, the research institute of the Ministry of Finance, and the Foundation
for Advanced Information and Research. Since then, I have returned to
Japan regularly for research, conferences, and invited lectures. All in
all, I figure I have spent about eight years there. In addition to Japan,
I lived for a summer doing research for the US Embassy in the Philippines and
have traveled widely throughout East Asia.
I used to have
hobbies, including skiing and traveling, but I have had to put them temporarily
on hold since the birth of my daughter in 2002. I also have a son, born
in 2005. My wife, Melinda Stanford,
is a singer, songwriter and vocal coach. After living in Cambridge,
Massachusetts for five and a half years, we moved to Brookline in 2001.