Since 1996, the Program has annually awarded a summer research grant to a Harvard doctoral student who conducts social science research on contemporary Japan. Made possible by a generous grant from Akiyama Aiseikan, a pharmaceutical firm based in Hokkaido, the Akiyama Award commemorates the life of Akiyama Aiseikan’s past president, Mrs. Akiyama Kiyo. Listed below are the recipients of the Akiyama Award, their research, and current affiliations.
Shi-lin Loh (2011-12)
Research topic: Building Communal Knowledge: Nuclear Science and Nuclear Villages
Current affiliation: Ph.D. candidate, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Sakura Christmas (2010-11)
Research topic: The Japanese Collecting Expeditions to the Manchurian and Mongolian Borderlands (1930-1945)
Current affiliation: Ph.D. candidate, Department of History
Eunmi Mun (2009-10)
Research topic: The Organizational Reproduction of Gender Inequality: Women’s Employment in Recessionary Japan
Chiaki Nishijima (2008-09)
Research topic: Commodified Bodies and Objectifying Subjectivities: Sex Trafficking and Enjo Kosai in Japan
Current affiliation: Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology
Jeremy Yellen (2007-08)
Research topic: In the Service of Empire: Japanese Wartime Internationalism and the Greater East Asia Conference of 1943
Current affiliation: Graduate Fellow, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies; Ph.D. candidate, Department of History
Amy Catalinac (2006-07)
Research topic: Explaining the Decline of Anti-Militarism in Japan: Electoral Incentives,
Domestic Politics, and National Identity
Current affiliation: Advanced Research Fellow, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard;
Assistant Professor, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University
Phillip Lipscy (2005-06)
Research topic: Japan’s Attempts to Change the Status Quo in International Organizations
Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Fumitaka Wakamatsu (2004-05)
Research topic: Making of Scientific Whaling in Japan: Ecology, Science, and Cultural Nationalism
Current affiliation: Ph.D. in Anthropology, Harvard University
Jiyeoun Song (2003-04)
Research topic: Distinctive features of East Asian welfare regimes
Tentative book title: Global Forces, Local Adjustment: The Politics of Labor Market Deregulation in Japan and South Korea
Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Oklahoma
Yarrow Dunham (2002-03)
Research topic: The cognitive effects of structural differences between the Japanese and English languages
Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of California, Merced
Kasumi Yamashita (2001-02)
Research topic: Attitudes toward Japan of emigrants to Brazil
Tentative dissertation title: “Exhibiting Diaspora: Japanese Migration Museums at Home and Abroad”
Christian Brunelli (2000-01)
Research topic: Historical development and cross-national variation in policing
Tentative dissertation title: “State Agents into Public Servants: The Development of Community Policing in Japan”
Daniel Aldrich (1999-2000)
Research topic: Effects of the “Big Bang” reforms in the financial sector
Published book: Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West (Cornell University Press, 2008)
Current affiliation: Associate Professor of Political Science, Purdue University
Robert Pekkanen (1998-99)
Research topic: The quality of civic life in Japan
Published book: Japan’s Dual Civil Society: Members Without Advocates (Stanford University
Press, 2006)
Current affiliation: Associate Professor and Japan Chair, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
Kim Reimann (1997-98)
Research topic: International relations and the rise of non-governmental organizations in Japan
Published book: Rise of Japanese NGOs: Activism from Above (Routledge, 2009)
Current affiliation: Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University
Paul Talcott (1996-97)
Research topic: Healthcare policy in Japan
Dissertation title: “Why the Weak Can Win: Healthcare Politics in Postwar Japan”
Current affiliation: Independent consultant on comparative healthcare policy
Christina Davis (1995-96)
Research topic: Japan and international relations
Published book: Food Fights over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization (Princeton University Press, 2003)
Current affiliation: Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University