Aqua to head strategic studies center

A top official of a New York-based foundation is the new director of Mississippi State's strategic studies center.

Ronald Aqua became head of the Center for International Security and Strategic Studies in July. Since 1989, he has served as vice president of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant-making organization that works to strengthen cooperation and understanding between people of the two countries.

Aqua succeeds the center's founder, Janos Radvanyi. A history professor and former diplomat, Radvanyi has been appointed to fill the university's newly established Chair in International Security and Strategic Studies.

The Center for International Security and Strategic Studies, or CISS, is an independently funded public service and research operation supported by voluntary contributions of foundations, corporations, and individual benefactors. It brings together faculty from several academic disciplines to help Southeastern businesses and industry compete successfully in international markets.

Aqua has been a member of numerous national committees dealing with international education and cultural exchange. He worked with the Peace Corps in the early 1970s as a middle school English teacher in South Korea.

Aqua said an initial goal will be "to further develop the center as a focal point of international research activities by working closely with other departments, centers, and institutes on campus."

He received a bachelor's degree at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., and master's and doctoral degrees from Cornell University in Ithaca.

Prior to joining the U.S.-Japan Foundation, he was a staff associate with the Social Science Research Council, a private association to promote and advance research in the social sciences and the humanities.