Jim Dator is Professor and Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies,Department of Political Science, and Adjunct Professor in the College of Architecture, the Program in Public Administration, and the Center for Japanese Studies, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa; Co-Chair, Space and Society Division, International Space University, Strasbourg, France; former President, World Futures Studies Federation; He also taught at Rikkyo University (Tokyo, for six years), the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, the University of Toronto, and the InterUniversity Consortium for Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia.
Major areas of specialization
Political futures studies (especially the forecasting of alternative futures and the design of preferred futures of governance, law, education, and technology)
Space and society, especially the design of governance systems for space settlements
The political-economic futures of North America, the Pacific Island region, and East Asia, especially Japan and Korea
Media production and the politics of media, and the effects of media on political and other human relations and consciousness
Recent Books
Social Foundations of Human Space Exploration. New York: Springer Briefs in Space Development, 2012
Democracy and Futures. (with Mika Mannermaa and Paula Tiihonen). Helsinki: Parliament of Finland, 2006
Fairness, Globalization and Public Institutions: East Asia and Beyond (with Dick Pratt and Yongseok Seo). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
Advancing Futures: Futures Studies in Higher Education. New York: Praeger, 2002. ALSO published in Korean in 2008
