Richard Kennedy is acting director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. He also continues to serve as deputy director, a post he has held since 1994. In his dual role as acting director and deputy director, he is responsible for the development and management of programmatic and administrative plans, including the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival Program, produced since 1967; Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and its digital Web site "Smithsonian Global Sound"; the Ralph Rinzler Archives, a documentary collection of traditional culture from across the United States and around the world; and various research, educational and documentary activities.

He has curated nine major Festival programs, including Hawai'i, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Tibetan culture, the Silk Road, Oman and the Mekong River.

Before coming to the Smithsonian, he was associate director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, where he produced the documentary film "Dance of Tears" about a refugee Cambodian dance troupe. The film received the "best documentary" award at the San Francisco Film Festival. For 12 years, he was chair of South Asian Area Studies at the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute.

Kennedy currently serves as a board member of the Hoshyar Foundation. He also has been a member of such organizations as the Association of Asian Studies, Asia Society, American Folklore Society, American Association of Museums, American Association for State and Local History, American Anthropology Association, Council for Museum Anthropology and Halau Haloa.

He has written numerous articles and reviews, which have been published in such journals as Foreign Policy and the Journal of Asian Studies.

Kennedy received a bachelor's degree in East Asia and Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1968); he earned his master's degree (1974) and doctorate degree (1980) in South and Southeast Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught courses at the Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses of the University and has lectured widely on Asian culture. He also has consulted for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of State, the United States Information Agency and various arts and humanities councils. In May 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from Connecticut College.

SI-412-2007