Associate Professor Ian Ruxton
Prof. Ruxton's early education was at one of the prestigious British "public schools", Cheltenham College. From there he went to Cambridge University, where he received his B.A. in 1978, specializing in Modern Languages and Law, and his M.A. in 1982. His early years after graduation were mostly spent teaching at similar independent schools -Merchant Taylors, Uppingham and Hurstpierpoint. He came to Japan in 1988 under an A.E.T. programme set up at Sumoto in Hyogo, and subsequently taught at a number of educational institutions in Kobe. In 1994 he was appointed lecturer in the Department of Human Sciences at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Kitakyushu, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. He also lectures concurrently at Kitakyushu University.

Prof. Ruxton lists as his fields of study Japanese diplomatic relations during the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, and Anglo-Japanese relations, as well as the teaching of English as a foreign language. He has addressed the JACC (Nihon Hikaku Bunka Gakkai) three times on subjects connected with Satow and with the Iwakura Mission, and two years ago he spoke at the international conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies on "The Ending of Extraterritoriality in Japan". Besides the teaching of English, he has also made a study of the learning of Japanese as a foreign language, and has addressed both JACET and JALT on the learning of kanji by native English speakers.