Valentine Daniel
Professor Errol Valentine Daniel is a Sri Lankan Tamil academic, anthropologist and author. He is currently Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University. Early life. Daniel was educated at Jaffna College. After school he joined Amherst College from where he received a B.A. degree. He then received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. Career. Daniel taught at the University of Washington (1978–90). He then taught at the University of Michigan (1990–97), serving as Director of the Program in Comparative Studies in Social Transformation from 1995 to 1997. He then  joined Columbia University. Daniel has also been a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, University of Texas at Austin, Centre d’étude de l’Inde et de l’Asie Sud and United Nations University. Daniel was one of the recipients of the 1995 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is proficient in Tamil, Sinhala, French and Malayalam. Works. Valentine has written several books: