Faculty
Dr Eakpant Pidavanija – Director
Dr Sirprapha – Chair of PhD Program
“My first formal contact with human rights works started when I served as a social worker at UNICEF’s Emergency Operations for Cambodian Refugees in 1979. My recent work focuses on issues of citizenship, migration, statelessness, forced migration and human rights education. Between October 2009 to December 2012, I served as the Thai Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. I am the Co-Chair of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, an entity associated with ASEAN . I also chair the SHAPE-SEA Program (Strengthening Human Rights and Peace Research and Education in ASEAN/Southeast Asia), a regional network of higher education institutions promoting human rights and peace in the region though education and research.”
Assoc. Prof. Dr Coeli Barry – Chair of MA Human Rights Program
“My main areas of research are critical theory and political sociology of rights in Asia, inclusive development, religion and conflict in SEA, and cross-cultural pedagogy, material and epistemological inequalities, race and assimilation in Asia.”
Dr Mike Hayes – Chair of MHRD Program
“I work on issues around migration, including refugees, migrant workers, and trafficking. I have also worked on development, including programming for the Rights Based Approach to development, and with the media around freedom of expression. More recently my work has been focused on human rights education at university level, including producing textbooks and training lecturers to teach human rights. “
Dr Matt Mullen – Lecturer
“Most of my research ties back to structural and cultural violence. My field research so far has been on the struggle for change in Burma. One of my big findings there was how important remittances (money being sent back from migrant workers) can be, not only in creating new opportunities for people, but also in transforming the power relations in some of the toughest situations. That has led me to look more at the commercial world as a site where human rights struggles play out. So I’m now taking some of those lessons and starting to focus on business and human rights.”
Dr Yanuar Sumarlan – Lecturer
“While doing some campaign-based research around migrant children (education), refugees (regional), death penalty (ASEAN), land tenure security for Thai farmers, among others, I train students to be proficient future researchers and scholars with deep understanding and drilled practices in collecting data, researching, writing, analyzing, conceptualizing, theorizing, presenting ideas, etc in Research Methods class.”
Dr Naparat Kranrattanasuit – Lecturer, MA Human Rights and MHRD
“I discovered that many migrant students between grade 3 and 6 in Samut Sakhon have been dropping out of school and becoming premature workers. They have been at risk of forced child labor exploitation. I teamed up with local Thai and non-Thai teachers to design an anti-human trafficking handbook for teachers to teach their migrant students to raise their awareness of human trafficking in Samut Sakhon and fundamental human rights. We also produced teaching tools such as children’s books in Thai-English and Burmese-English versions that signalize human trafficking elements, anti-human trafficking songs, flashcards and posters of diverse careers to inspire migrant students to maintain their studies, even working at the same time. “
Dr Bencharat – Lecturer
Dr Vacharuthai Boontinand – Lecturer
Dr Claus Meyer – Lecturer
“A historian by trade, I have a background in comparative slave studies, in which I retain an active interest. I now work on human trafficking and “modern-day slavery,” which I study against the backdrop of historical forms of extreme dependence and exploitation. I am also interested in human rights education.”