Valentine Udoh James is a professor of environmental management, planning, and policy at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. James specializes in sustainable development and environmental sciences with particular emphasis on the environmental issues of developing countries. His current research focuses on the sustainability of the environmental/ecological systems of emerging nations. He is currently collaborating with several Chinese and African researchers at the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, China Agricultural University, University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin, and the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER). He served as provost and academic vice president at Clarion University from 2008-2011. At Fayetteville State University, he was dean of graduate studies from February to June, 2008 and dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences from August, 2004 to February, 2008. He has held tenure track/tenured positions at University of Louisiana, Lafayette; University of Virginia in Charlottesville; Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he served as the director of the PhD program in public policy and interim chair of the master’s degree program in public administration. He served as the director of African studies program at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. James has also worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Professor James has authored and edited fourteen books and several are forthcoming. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles in refereed journals and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa (JSDA) – an online journal he founded in 1998. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals, and he is often sought after to provide lectures and opinions on matters concerning development and environmental issues of developing countries. He is the recipient of scholarly awards such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Diplomacy Fellowship; Fulbright–Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, and The University of California Presidential Fellowship. He has mentored and supervised Fulbright scholars from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Cameroon, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, and Tanzania. In 1996, James organized an international conference on sustainable development in developing countries while he was on the faculty of the University of Virginia. In April of 2007, he planned the “First International Congress on Critical Perspectives on Energy, Environment, Technology and Water Development and Protection Worldwide.” The papers presented are forthcoming in the Journal of Global Development Studies and in a book. The following year, he organized the second such conference. Professor James holds a PhD in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University, an MA in environmental science from Governors State University (Illinois), and a BS in biology from Tusculum College (Tennessee). He also studied liberal arts at the American College of Rome. He speaks Italian and several African languages and has lived in and traveled to many countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Through his many professional collaborations, he has been instrumental in establishing study abroad programs with several foreign institutions. For more information, please visit: www.jsd-africa.com

Research Interest: International Sustainable Development and Planning, Involves Third World Development Planning; international development and sustainable environmental, economic and social development in less developed areas of the world. Indigenous systems of resource management with emphasis on agricultural and ecological systems of developing nations

No. of Publications (up-to-date): 30