Dr. Richard A. Matthew is Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California at Irvine, and Director of both the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (www.cusa.uci.edu) and the associated Global Environmental Change and Human Security Research Office (www.gechs.uci.edu) at UCI. He is a Faculty Associate of the Global Peace and Conflict Studies Center and the Center for the Study of Democracy. He received his PhD from Princeton University and has taught at Georgetown University and Williams College. He has worked closely with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, government departments and agencies including Defense and State, intergovernmental organizations including the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the private sector. His research focuses on understanding and responding to transnational security threats including global environmental change, terrorism, infectious disease and landmines. Much of this work has explored possibilities for reducing threat and vulnerability through education, conservation and poverty alleviation. He has undertaken field work throughout South Asia and other parts of the developing world, including Pakistan, Cambodia and South Africa.
The Soka Gakkai International (SGI-USA) Culture of Peace Resource Centers in New York, Santa Monica, Chicago Washington D.C., and Honolulu have launched the Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series to engage people in a dialogue on the values, attitudes and behaviors that reject violence and inspire creative energy toward the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Lecturers in this series focus on one or more of the 8 action areas defined by the 1999 United Nations Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace: (1) Fostering a culture of peace through education, (2) Promoting sustainable economic and social development, (3) Promoting respect for all human rights, (4) Ensuring equality between women and men, (5) Fostering democratic participation, (6) Advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity, (7) Supporting participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge and (8) Promoting international peace and security.

We hope that this eclectic and thought-provoking series of dialogues will empower community participants with a heightened awareness of the subtle shifts in our attitudes and behaviors that can help attain and sustain a culture of peace and to apply what they have learned in meaningful ways to their families, schools, workplaces and local communities. This annual lecture series begins on January 26 of each year to commemorate the founding of the Soka Gakkai International and the yearly publication of a peace proposal by SGI President Daisaku Ikeda. All lectures are free and open to the public.