Professor Chayan Vaddhanaphuti received his BA from Chulalongkorn University, MPA from the National Institute of Development Administration, MA in Anthropology and PhD in International Development Education with concentration in Anthropology from Stanford University. He received the Honorary Doctorate in Social Anthropology from Göteborg University, Sweden, in 2004 and in 2019, the French Republic bestowed the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques upon him as the distinguished academic.
His main interests include development studies, ethnic relation, ethnic identity, cross-border issues, knowledge and power, health social science, regionalization of development in the Mekong sub-region. He has been working on ethnicity, development, resource management, multiculturalism, etc., and has promoted the intersection between social science and development. Currently, he serves as the Director for the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) and the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD), Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.