Harold Kerbo graduated from the college in 1970 with a degree in sociology with a minor in psychology. He then went on to receive his master's degree at OU, and his doctorate degree at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Kerbo will return to the OU campus this fall to discuss "Poverty Reduction in Southeast Asia: Prospects for Cambodia," on Monday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Kerr Auditorium at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Harold R. Kerbo has been a professor at Cal Poly since 1977, and is again chair of the Social Sciences Department. He has been promoting international education in the United States and abroad with study programs to Southeast Asia for Cal Poly students. He also has had extensive teaching and research experience in Asia and Europe since the early 1980s.  In addition to other teaching experience in Tokyo, Kerbo was a Fulbright Professor from 1988 to 1989 at Hiroshima University, as well as a visiting professor in the law faculty at Hiroshima Shudo University.  During 1991, Kerbo was a visiting professor at the University of Duisburg, Germany, and returned to the Dusseldorf area during 1992 and 1993 as a research professor conducting research on employee relations in Japanese corporations located in Germany. In 1990, he received a Fulbright‑Hays grant to study at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and for several months during 1994 to 1996 directed a research project on employee relations in American and  Japanese corporations with operations in Thailand.

During 1996 he was also a visiting professor in the MBA Program at the Prince of Songkla University in Thailand. During the winter term of 1999, Kerbo was a visiting professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a visiting professor at the University of Wales, Great Britain, during the fall term of 1999. In 2002 Kerbo was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma and in 2003 a Distinguished Fulbright Chair in the Political Science Department at the University of Vienna. During 2006-2007 he was the recipient of an Abe Research Fellowship based in Japan. He will spend the year doing research on poverty reduction programs in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and spend part of the year in residence at the Center for Social Inequality at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Again during fall 2006 term, Kerbo is a visiting professor, Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma.

Kerbo has published several books and numerous articles on the subjects of social stratification, comparative societies, corporate structure, and modern Japan. He is the author of a basic sociology text book, Sociology: Social Structure and Social Conflict (MacMillan, 1989).  He also is the author of the leading textbook on social stratification, Social Stratification and Inequality, published by McGraw‑Hill, now in its 6th edition, and recently translated into Spanish, and is currently being translated into Russian. Along with John A. McKinstry, Kerbo authored Who Rules Japan?: The Inner‑Circles of Economic and Political Power (Greenwood/Praeger, 1995). Kerbo is creator and general editor of the McGraw‑Hill Comparative Societies Series which includes books on 11 countries. His latest book, World Poverty: Global Inequalities and The Modern World System was published by McGraw-Hill in 2006. His current research involves a comparative analysis of poverty reduction programs and their success in Southeast Asian countries.