I am designated associate professor and strategy lead in the International Strategy Office at Nagoya University, where I work on institutional partnerships and international collaboration frameworks. I am also vice head of the International Communications Office. My current research focuses on LGBTQ+ experiences of higher education in Japan, supported by two consecutive Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grants (2019-2024), alongside research on gender equity in STEM fields. I got here by way of experimental psychology, history and science communication, and looking back I find common themes that were not apparent when I started.
My approach to both scholarship and institutional work is guided by several principles. I believe meaningful work should be engaging—if it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right. I regularly need to remind myself of this as I am often doing it wrong. This extends to a belief that education and research should serve human growth rather than perpetuate harm.
Power structures shape our society and maintain its form. My research from the start has focused on the powerless within those structures and their coping strategies—the levers they use to secure their positions and protect their rights. This focus has led me to examine both sexual minorities in Japanese higher education and barriers facing women in STEM disciplines across Japan and internationally.
Two quotes in particular have stuck with me for years and guide my overall approach. The first is from Elie Wiesel: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
The second is Karl Popper’s insight about defending open societies: “We should claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
I take from these quotes that we cannot be neutral when the powerless suffer, and also that protecting democratic values sometimes requires active resistance to forces that would undermine them. Just as intersectionality theory helps us understand our identities, as a researcher of minorities, and as a minority researcher, these quotes remind me of the inseparability of minorities’ rights and their equivalence to human rights.
More recently I have discovered Paulo Freire’s understanding that learning is fundamentally collaborative: “No one educates anyone else, nor do people educate themselves; people educate one another, mediated by the world.”
This connects directly to critiques of the deficit model in science communication—the flawed assumption that simply providing information will change minds or behaviours. Structures of power are fundamental to our society and will not be overcome by rote learning or information alone. The most important skill needed today is the ability to perceive the world around us for what it is. Teaching information will always be part of education, but critical thinking will always be its most important goal.
This shapes how I approach both research and institutional work: emphasising dialogue and mutual learning rather than one-way knowledge transfer. Whether working with international partners, examining minority experiences in higher education, or building a strategy for university communications, understanding diverse perspectives and creating space for authentic collaboration are essential.
Every day I find myself coming up short on embodying these principles. But every day I am encouraged and inspired by the many who work to advance social justice and create environments where all people can flourish.