Tatsushi Arai
PhD, George Mason University
MA, Monterey Institute of International Studies
BA, Waseda University
Assistant Professor
Tatsushi (Tats) Arai, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Conflict Transformation at the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont, USA. Before joining SIT in 2006, he taught at George Mason University in Virginia and the National University of Rwanda.
Tats’s commitment to peace-building has evolved from his first encounter with victims of radiation sickness in Hiroshima when he was fifteen. His journey in conflict transformation took him to post-genocide Rwanda as an NGO representative, to the Japanese branch of an international corporation as a personnel specialist responsible for managing cross-cultural industrial disputes, and to diverse settings of multi-track peacemaking, especially in the Middle East, sub-Sahara Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and North America. As a trainer, mediator, and dialogue facilitator, he has led a number of peacebuilding workshops for government officials, representatives of international organizations, and civil society leaders from around the world.
Tats is a research fellow of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research, an international advisory board member of Global Majority: Building Peace Through Dialogue, and a member of TRANSCEND: An International Peace and Development Network. His recent publications include Creativity and Conflict Resolution: Alternative Pathways to Peace (2009, Routledge) and chapters in Conflict Across Cultures (2006, Intercultural Press).
Tats holds a BA in Law from Waseda University in Tokyo, an MA in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University in Virginia. He is a Japanese citizen married to Yuchun Chen from Taiwan. They have a son, Justice.
