2016 Cohort IV Participants
Please note that the position and affiliation of each individual are from the time of application.
Amy Catalinac will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at New York University from fall 2016. She teaches courses on international relations, comparative politics, Japanese security policy, and Japanese politics. Her research uses the case of Japan to address core questions in international relations and comparative politics. Her book, “Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy” was published with Cambridge University Press in 2016. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard (2011-12); an Assistant Professor at Australian National University (2012-14); and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard (2014-15).
Dr. Catalinac received her Ph.D. in Government at Harvard University.
Yulia Frumer is an Assistant Professor in the department of History of Science and Technology, at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on the history of technology in Japan, and she teaches broadly about the history of science and technology in East Asia. In her current project she focuses on the history of humanoid robots in Japan. She spent a year on a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. In the course of her research in Japan, Yulia Frumer was affiliated with the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) and Tokyo University, and held fellowships from the Japanese Government (Monbukagaskusho) and the Japan Foundation. Her first book manuscript, titled “A Matter of Time: Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan,” is currently under review with the University of Chicago Press.
Dr. Frumer received her Ph.D. in History of Science from Princeton University.
Robert Hoppens is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where he teaches Japanese, Chinese, East Asian, and world history. His research interests focus on the history of Sino-Japanese relations, Cold War history and issues of national identity in East Asia. He is the author of “The China Problem in Postwar Japan: Japanese National Identity and Sino-Japanese Relations”, published by Bloomsbury Press as part of the series SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan.
Dr. Hoppens received his Ph.D. in Modern Japanese History from University of Washington.
Noriyuki Katagiri is an assistant professor of political science at St. Louis University where he teaches international relations, security studies, and East Asia. He is writing a book on Japan’s military power after he published his first titled Adapting to Win: How Insurgents Fight and Defeat Foreign States in War (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Before joining St. Louis University, he taught international security at Air War College, a joint military graduate school for senior officers and officials of the US government and foreign nations.
Dr. Katagiri received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Adam P. Liff is an Assistant Professor of East Asian International Relations in Indiana University’s new School of Global and International Studies. His research focus is on international relations and security studies; the foreign relations of Japan and China; U.S. policy toward the Asia-Pacific; the continuing evolution of Japan’s postwar security policy profile; and the rise of China and its impact on its region and the world. He is also the founding director of the “East Asia and the World” speaker series, faculty affiliate at the Center on American and Global Security, and senior associate at the China Policy Research Institute. Since 2014, he has been an associate-in-research at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.
Dr. Liff received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.
Ko Maeda is an associate professor of political science at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on comparative politics, in particular elections, party competition, and political institutions as well as political economy. His research also incorporates quantitative methodology. His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Theoretical Politics.
Dr. Maeda received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Michigan State University.
Reo Matsuzaki is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Trinity College. His research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and history of East Asia, with a focus on state-building and colonialism. His current book project, through a comparison of Japanese colonization of Taiwan (1895-1945) and the U.S. colonization of the Philippines (1898- 1942), explores the dynamic of state-building at the intersection of state and society, and the role societal intermediaries play in the process of constructing modern state institutions. He is an Associate-in-Research at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and at Yale University’s Council of East Asian Studies.
Dr. Matsuzaki received his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Matthew Poggi is a deputy director in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of International Banking and Securities Markets, overseeing coverage of Asian financial systems and specializing in financial stability, shadow banking, and macro-prudential policy issues. He has also worked in the Office of East Asia covering Japan and Korea, and the Office of Global Economics conducting cross-country analysis. Prior to joining Treasury, he was an economist at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo and worked at the International Department at the Bank of Japan. He participated in the Mansfield Fellowship Program from 2009-2011, he served in Japan’s Ministry of Finance, Financial Services Agency, Bank of Japan and in the office of a member of the Diet. Mr. Poggi received a M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics, and an MPP from Columbia University.
Jolyon Baraka Thomas is an assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on Japanese religions, pop culture, and history. He is the author of Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012) and is currently finishing a book manuscript with the working title, “Japan, the Allied Occupation, and the Problem of Religious Freedom”. He is Co-Editor of the Asian Religions section of the Marginalia Review of Books and a regular contributor to Sacred Matters.
Dr. Thomas received his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University.
Kristin Vekasi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Policy and International Affairs at the University of Maine. Her research interests focus on international political economy, and the dynamics of political conflict, foreign direct investment, and nationalism. She specializes in Northeast Asia, conducting research in both Japan and China. Her current research looks at how Japanese multinational corporations mitigate political risk in China. Prior to joining the faculty at University of Maine, she taught at New College of Florida, was a visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo, and was a Fulbright Fellow at Tohoku University.
Dr. Vekasi received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Joshua W. Walker is an academic and practitioner in international affairs with concurrent specialization in the Middle East and East Asia. He currently serves as the Vice-President of Global Programs at APCO Worldwide; a Transatlantic Fellow in the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States where he leads the Japan and Turkey work; and teaches at George Washington University’s Elliot Graduate School of International Affairs. Before joining the private sector, he worked at the U.S. Department of State in Secretary Kerry’s Office of the Chief Economist and served in Secretary Clinton’s Global Partnership Initiative as a senior advisor. He has also previously worked on the Turkey Desk of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, the U.S. Embassy Ankara, and for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Dr. Walker received his Ph.D. in politics and public policy from Princeton University.