People

As of 1 April 2010, Dr Philippe Peycam will be the new Director of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS).

Dr Peycam is a historian by training. He received his MA (DEA in French) from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne University in Paris. At the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he wrote his PhD thesis: Intellectuals and Political Commitment in Vietnam: the Emergence of a Public Sphere in Colonial Saigon (1916-1928).

From 1999 to 2009, Dr Peycam was the (founding) Executive Director of the Center of Khmer Studies in Siem Reap. This research centre supports the largest academic network on Khmer and Mainland Southeast Asian studies in the world. As Director, Dr Peycam gained extensive experience in institution building, management, designing and overseeing multidisciplinary programmes, raising funds from public and private sources as well as organising community-oriented initiatives and civil society support-programmes.