IAFOR > ACERP > ACERP2018 > Speakers

Speakers

The Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy 2018 (ACERP2018) is a multidisciplinary conference held concurrently with The Asian Conference on Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences 2018 (ACP2018). Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. Registration for either conference will allow participants to attend sessions in both.

This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

  • Professor Frank S. Ravitch
    Professor Frank S. Ravitch
    Michigan State University College of Law, USA
  • Dr Brian Victoria
    Dr Brian Victoria
    Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK
  • Dr James W. McNally
    Dr James W. McNally
    University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging
  • Professor Dexter Da Silva
    Professor Dexter Da Silva
    Keisen University, Japan
  • Professor Ronald Mellado Miller
    Professor Ronald Mellado Miller
    Brigham Young University – Hawaii, USA
  • Dr Monty P. Satiadarma
    Dr Monty P. Satiadarma
    Tarumanagara University, Indonesia
  • Professor Steve Cornwell
    Professor Steve Cornwell
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) & Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan

Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past ACERP conferences via the links below.

Professor Frank S. Ravitch
Michigan State University College of Law, USA

Biography

Frank S. Ravitch is Professor of Law and Walter H. Stowers Chair in Law in Religion at the Michigan State University College of Law. He also directs the MSU College of Law, Kyoto Japan Program. He is the author of Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (Nominated for a Prose Award); Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007); Law and Religion: Cases, Materials, and Readings (West 2004)(2nd Ed. 2008) (3rd Ed. 2015 with Larry Cata Backer), School Prayer and Discrimination: The Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press, 1999 & paperback edition 2001). He is co-author, with the late Boris Bittker and with Scott Idleman, of the first comprehensive treatise on Law and Religion in more than one hundred years, Religion and the State in American Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) (this project was supported by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment). He is also co-author of, Employment Discrimination Law (Prentice Hall, 2005) (with Pamela Sumners and Janis McDonald).

Professor Ravitch's articles, which have appeared in a number of highly regarded journals, have primarily focused on law and religion in the US and Japan, but he has also written about civil rights law and disability discrimination. He has authored a number of amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court and has given numerous academic presentations nationally and internationally. In 2001, he was named a Fulbright scholar and served on the law faculty at Doshisha University (Japan). He has also made dozens of public presentations explaining the law before school groups, community groups, and service clubs and has served as an expert commentator for print and broadcast media.

Professor Ravitch’s current projects include a book on the Japanese Legal System (co-authored with Colin Jones), a chapter on law and religious tradition, and a project focusing on Law, Religion, and Authoritarianism. He speaks English and basic conversational Japanese and Hebrew.

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Law, Religion and Authoritarianism: From State Shinto to Religio-Trumpism

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2017) | Freedom’s Edge: Balancing Religious Freedom and Equal Access to Facilities and Services for Transexuals
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Free Speech and Hate Speech – History, Story, Narrative
Dr Brian Victoria
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

Biography

Brian Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska and a 1961 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He holds a MA in Buddhist Studies from Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo, and a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University.

In addition to a second, enlarged edition of Zen At War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Brian's major writings include Zen War Stories (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); an autobiographical work in Japanese entitled Gaijin de ari, Zen bozu de ari (As a Foreigner, As a Zen Priest), published by San-ichi Shobo in 1971; Zen Master Dōgen, coauthored with Prof. Yokoi Yūhō of Aichi-gakuin University (Weatherhill, 1976); and a translation of The Zen Life by Sato Koji (Weatherhill, 1972). In addition, Brian has published numerous journal articles, focusing on the relationship of not only Buddhism but religion in general, to violence and warfare.

From 2005 to 2013 Brian was a Professor of Japanese Studies and director of the AEA “Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program” at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, OH, USA. From 2013-2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan where he is writing a book tentatively entitled: Zen Terror in 1930s Japan. Brian currently continues his research as a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, and is a fully ordained Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect.

Featured Presentation (2018) | Shinto: Window on Universal Religion

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2017) | Military Conscription, Slavery and the Modern State
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation
Dr James W. McNally
University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging

Biography

Dr James W. McNally is the Director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive containing over 1,500 studies related to health and the aging lifecourse. He currently does methodological research on the improvement and enhancement of secondary research data and has been cited as an expert authority on data imputation. Dr McNally has directed the NACDA Program on Aging since 1998 and has seen the archive significantly increase its holdings with a growing collection of seminal studies on the aging lifecourse, health, retirement and international aspects of aging. He has spent much of his career addressing methodological issues with a specific focus on specialised application of incomplete or deficient data and the enhancement of secondary data for research applications. Dr McNally has also worked extensively on issues related to international aging and changing perspectives on the role of family support in the later stages of the aging lifecourse.

Dr James W. McNally is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Social Sciences & Sustainability division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Featured Presentation (2018) | Patterns of Depression Among Elderly Asian Immigrants to the United States Over the Past Decade
Professor Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University, Japan

Biography

Dr Dexter Da Silva is currently Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University in Tokyo. He has taught EFL at junior high school, language schools, and universities in Sydney, Australia, and for more than two decades has been living, and teaching at the tertiary level, in Japan. Professor Da Silva was educated at the University of Sydney (BA, Dip. Ed., MA), and the University of Western Sydney (PhD). He has presented and co-presented at conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, co-edited two books on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning, and written or co-written articles and book chapters on education-related topics, such as trust, student motivation, autonomy, and content-based language teaching. He is a past editor of On CUE Journal, past president of the Asian Psychological Association, regular reviewer for conferences, proceedings, journal articles and book chapters, and regularly co-chairs and participates in the Organising Committee of conferences on Motivation, Language Learning and Teaching, and Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences.

Featured Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century

Previous Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation
Featured Presentation (2015)
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Professor Ronald Mellado Miller
Brigham Young University – Hawaii, USA

Biography

Dr Ronald Mellado Miller received his PhD from Purdue University in Experimental Psychology, USA, and is currently a professor at Brigham Young University in Hawaii. Dr Miller’s main interests have been in the area of applied statistical analysis and predictive modelling. As a result, his research and work have been quite eclectic. He has research published in journals ranging from Animal Learning and Behavior, Learning and Motivation, Applied Neuropsychology, TechTrends, and the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, out of Oxford University Press, where he has also served as a reviewer. He has worked for a number of major airlines (Fedex, United, US Airways, etc.) in the area of safety. His international projects have ranged from India and the Philippines, where he was able to assist NGOs established to aid those in poverty, to China, where he worked with the largest entertainment company in the country. He has led research in Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, working with governments and NGOs to improve educational and other social outcomes. He has a great love for teaching and mentoring. His students have participated in each of his consulting projects and have been accepted to prestigious schools around the world, including Oxford University, MIT, and Columbia University, among others.

Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2017) | A Poverty of Hope: Towards a Psychology of Humanitarian Success
Dr Monty P. Satiadarma
Tarumanagara University, Indonesia

Biography

Dr Satiadarma is a clinical psychologist who has been teaching psychology at Tarumanagara University since 1994. He was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at Tarumanagara, as well as the Dean of Psychology, Vice Rector and Rector of the university. He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Indonesia, art therapy from Emporia State, Kansas, family counselling from Notre Dame de Namur, California, and clinical hypnotherapy from Irvine, California. He has nationally published a number of books with a particular interest in educational psychology, and in music and art therapy – methods with which he treated survivors of the Indonesian tsunami on behalf of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. He is a board member and area chair of the International Council of Psychology, and a founder and board member of the Asian Psychology Association.

Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy

Previous Presentations

IAAB Presentation (2017) | Life Changes, Identity Loss and Psychological Problems
Spotlight Presentation (2016) | Fairness and Happiness
Spotlight Presentation (2015) | The Lucifer Effect in Indonesian Educational Settings
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2013)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Professor Steve Cornwell
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) & Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan

Biography

Steve Cornwell is the President of IAFOR, and President of the Academic Governing Board. He coordinates and oversees the International Academic Advisory Board, and also serves on the organisation's Board of Directors. He is Chair of the Language Learning section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Dr Cornwell is Vice President of Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan, where he is also a Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies. He helped write and design several of the courses at the New School in New York, and currently teaches on the online portion of the MA TESOL Programme, having been involved with the programme since its inception.

He has also been involved with the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) serving on its National Board of Directors as Director of Programme from 2012 to 2016; where his duties involved working with a volunteer team of over 50 people to organise JALT’s annual, international conference each autumn.

Since 2012 he has been the Committee Chair of Osaka Jogakuin University’s Lifelong Learning Committee and is responsible for their evening extension programme geared towards alumni and community members. He is also the Vice-Chair of Osaka Jogakuin University’s English Education Committee, which is responsible for suggesting policy regarding English education and for developing material for the integrated curriculum.

Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century