He completed a PhD at UCLA in 1992, followed by a post-doc at Florida Atlantic University. He previously taught at Victoria University of Wellington (becoming Professor and Co-Director of its Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research). His research is in cross-cultural, social, and political psychology, with a specialization in social representations of history and their relationship to identity, prejudice, and international relations. James has 170 refereed publications that have been cited over 6000 times (H-index = 44 according to GoogleScholar). He calls the Asian Association of Social Psychology (http://asiansocialpsych.org), his organizational home, having served as President, Secretary General, Treasurer, and Editor-in-Chief of its flagship journal over 20 years of membership in the association. He is a leader among large coalitions of researchers around the world in 3 topical areas: Digital Influence (i.e., impact of the internet and other forms of mass media on societies and individuals), Social Representations of History and Identity, and Social Change in the Asia-Pacific. A naturalized citizen of two countries, he calls himself a “Chinese-American-New Zealander”.