James Gomez is a Singaporean academic and former politician. He is presently Professor of Communications and Associate Dean (International Affairs) at the School of Communication Arts, Bangkok University, Thailand. In 2015, he founded the Asia Centre, a regional educational enterprise based in Bangkok, Thailand. Gomez was a member of the Workers' Party from 2001 to 2006 and Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) from 2010 to 2015. He also served as the Executive Director of Singaporeans for Democracy (a former non-governmental organisation) from 2010 to 2012 and he was a founding Executive Director of Think Centre, Singapore's oldest political association in 1999. Gomez came to national attention in Singapore during the 2006 general election campaign following an incident in which he accused the Elections Department of losing his minority-race candidate's application form, but was later forced to apologise when closed-circuit television evidence showed that he had placed the form in his briefcase. He stood as a member of the Workers' Party's team in the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency at the election, ultimately losing to the team of the governing People's Action Party (PAP) in the constituency by 44% of the votes to 56%. Gomez has previously been the Deputy Associate Dean (International) at the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences at Monash University (Australia) and has lectured and conducted research at various tertiary institutions including Thammasat University (Thailand), Mahidol University (Thailand) Universiti Utara Malaysia, Keio University (Japan) and United International College (China). Gomez was also a Programme Officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Sweden, and a Research and Project Manager for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.