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Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International Studies, and also the Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. In 2001 he became Chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent Federal grant-making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy-oriented research in the United States. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Samuels served as Head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992 and 1997 and as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. Grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation have supported 9 years of field research in Japan.

Dr. Samuels' book, Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia was published in 2007 by Cornell University Press. In 2008, the book was one of five finalists for the Lionel Gelber prize for the best book on international affairs. His previous books include Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and their Legacies in Italy and Japan, a comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan; Rich Nation, Strong Army: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan; The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective; and Politics of Regional Policy in Japan.

His articles have appeared in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, International Security, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Daedalus, The Washington Quarterly, and other scholarly journals.

Dr. Samuels received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.