Thomas J Vallely

Thomas J. Vallely is the senior advisor for Mainland Southeast Asia and the former director of the Vietnam Program, a position he held since its inception in 1989. Vallely has used the Vietnam Program’s research to engage in a candid and constructively critical dialogue with the Vietnamese government about the strategic challenges confronting the country. Under Vallely’s leadership the Fulbright School has emerged as a center of excellence in public policy research and teaching and a pioneer in the development of new modes of institutional governance in Vietnam. A primary focus of Vallely’s past work is institutional innovation in Vietnamese higher education and science. He draws on the Program’s experience designing and developing innovative educational initiatives in Vietnam to pursue a dialogue about higher education reform with Vietnamese and international stakeholders. Vallely highlights the central importance of governance to achieving better outcomes in higher education and believes that international universities must revise current paradigms of academic exchange in order to effectively support institutional innovation in Vietnam. Vallely has also worked in Cambodia, Myanmar/Burma, Mongolia, and the Ukraine. In these countries he has focused on the political economy of reform. Prior to becoming director of the Vietnam Program, Vallely was a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, where he worked on strategic and military issues in East and Southeast Asia. He has worked as a political consultant and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1980, serving until 1987. Vallely received a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts/Boston and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School. Vallely served with the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam.