Members

SHAOFENG ZHENG

Research field:Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology

●What are your current research interests?

How gene and environmental factors (e.g., culture, childhood experience) independently and interactively shape individuals’ empathy and support-seeking

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Writing interesting papers

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Solve problems with a systematic, scientific approach

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Understanding human nature

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Create my own theory or research field and inspire others to join me

Toshimitsu Aritake

Research field:Statictical machine learning

●What are your current research interests?

I am focusing on machine learning, particularly researching distribution shift aspects such as transfer learning and domain adaptation, and also meta-optimization, which involves learning how to optimize.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I feel a sense of excitement when I thoroughly understand the problem at hand and come up with models or analytical methods that fit that problem well.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

The pursuit of novelty and self-improvement.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Initially, I was motivated by my admiration for how my mentor and senior colleagues in the lab approached their research. Afterward, I worked at a company, but I couldn’t let go of my desire to become a researcher, so I returned to the path of research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I aim to advance research on two fronts: addressing practical problems while also tackling mathematically intriguing problems.

Marco Nutta

Research field:Marketing

●What are your current research interests?

Branding, Brand coolness, consumer behavior, foodservice and lodging marketing

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Learning a new skill each time I start a project.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Discovering the unknown and confirming or denying assumptions

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My mother because she is a researcher and I always wanted to be like her.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I would like to be well-known for brand coolness research. Additionally, my field lacks theoretical development and I would like to one day to contribute to the development of a new theory specific to hospitality and tourism.

Huynh Nguyen Khoi

Research field:International Relations, Quantitative Methodology

●What are your current research interests?

My main interests are studying the dynamics between globalization and populism. I am also working on applications of machine learning and causal inference methods in social sciences.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finishing a project and sharing my ideas with others

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Understand the world more little by little

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I have always been curious about studying politics, but it was my professors and mentors that really inspired me to pursue research and academia.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope to expand my skillset and collaborate with many other researchers.

Mitsuhiko Ishikawa

Research field:Social Neuroscience, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

●What are your current research interests?

How do humans execute appropriate social behaviours in response to various contexts?
How do humans acquire sociality throughout development?

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Eureka moment—such as when a groundbreaking experimental design, task, or theory emerges after long hours of contemplation.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Everyday life

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My grandfather was a university professor, so I was familiar with academia from a young age.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Research has no final destination, so I aspire to be a researcher who continues exploring until the very end of my life.

Mioko Sudo

Research field:Developmental psychology, with a particular focus on children’s social cognition and socialization processes

●What are your current research interests?

I am currently broadly interested in young children’s social cognition, including their ability to stand in other people’s shoes and their ability to empathize with others from diverse backgrounds, as well as how the development of such social-cognitive abilities could be influenced by children’s unique social and cultural environment.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

What I enjoy most about research is the opportunity to pursue answers to questions that pique my interest, and through that pursuit, being able to contribute a piece (no matter how tiny) to the puzzle of understanding human development.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

To me, research is like a continuous learning journey, involving seeking answers to questions, acquiring new knowledge and skills, and evolving as a thinker.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

During my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to be involved in projects focusing on the language and cognitive development of foreign national children in Japan and Japanese children in the United States. I felt like learning about the unique struggles of such children was like learning about my childhood self since I grew up in multiple cultural contexts myself. My interest in learning about how such children’s struggles could potentially be alleviated served as the trigger for my interest in research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope to be able to contribute to the advancement of knowledge on children’s social cognition, and to become able to guide the next generation of researchers in their academic pursuits.

Kim Honjik

Research field:Built environment and human behavior

●What are your current research interests?

Social sustainability, including health promotion, aging in place, well-being, and social participation

●What do you enjoy most about research?

When I was able to add a brick to the foundation of studies

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Adventure for a better future/life

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I am interested in the topic of “where we prefer to live.” As East Asian countries are facing rapid population aging, I have focused my research on the types of neighborhoods that older adults are most satisfied with.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope my research will help create living environments where people of all ages can feel happy.

Ryoya Yamasaki

Research field:Machine Learning, Statistics

●What are your current research interests?

Ordinal regression, Sparse modeling

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I like being able to decide what to do by myself.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

It’s just something I like to do, but I have to be cognizant of a job 🙂

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I got hooked on ‘PSYCHO-PASS’ and ‘Ghost in the Shell’ when I was in a high school. This led me to informatics and research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I want to do research that will still be cited 100 years from now.

Asako Toyama

Research field:Experimental psychology , Computational Behavioral Science

●What are your current research interests?

Decision-making, reinforcement learning models, emotion, physiological responses, computational psychiatry

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I enjoy being able to approach topics of interest in my own way while learning along the way. I also find it exciting to hear about other researchers’ work.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Trial and error driven by curiosity

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I initially became interested in memory, which led me to study psychology. Over time, my research interests expanded to various other topics.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I aspire to be a researcher who integrates multiple perspectives—such as cognitive science, computational modeling, and psychology—to deepen our understanding of human behavior and the mind.

Davide Luigi Totaro

Research field:Comparative Private Law

●What are your current research interests?

Contracts, Insurance, Fintech/Insurtech, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Protection

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Providing solutions and insights on practical legal issues while advancing the theoretical framework, bridging the gap between industry and academia

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Advance human knowledge-understanding and problem-solving capability

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

The freedom to research, express yourself, and pursue knowledge, privileges that only academia can grant.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Furthering my knowledge and expertise in academia while engaging with private and public entities in the hope of working together toward common standards for trade and governance, especially in areas such as Artificial Intelligence.

Kareman Yassin

Research field:Applied Microeconomics and Enviromental Economics

●What are your current research interests?

My current research closely aligns with global efforts for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I enjoy delving deeply into topics that sparks my curiosity with the goal of making contributions that could benefit others in the future.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Developing a deep and comprehensive understanding of a single topic.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My grandfather, a professor of physiology, had a deep love for science and was known for his strong work ethic and unwavering commitment to both his research and his students.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

To establish collaborations with both the public and private sectors to develop innovative, feasible, and evidence-based policies that bring us closer to achieving the net-zero carbon emission target.

Julia Mariko Jacoby

Research field:Early modern Japanese environmental and economic history

●What are your current research interests?

I currently research the complex natural resource networks of early modern Japanese villages and how they continued into the Meiji period.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I love to connect with people from the past through reading sources and to connect with colleagues about research.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Research, for me, is an opportunity to never stop learning.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I’ve always been curious and loved analyzing things.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I want to be a researcher who brings people together internationally.

Tetsuya Aoki

Research field:platform strategy

●What are your current research interests?

Platform, Marketing, Metaverse

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finding and Meeting creative people

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Creative exploration

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Goslings lead the geese to water

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

boundary spanner of academia and industry

Haitao Cheng

Research field:International trade theory

●What are your current research interests?

trade and the environment, border carbon adjustments, carbon pricing

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Develop interesting models, obtain interesting results.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Research means solving the questions that you cannot answer with Google.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Google usually does not work well in answering my questions. So, why not do it by myself?

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Publish good papers in good journals.

Yuta Kittaka

Research field:Industrial Organization

●What are your current research interests?

Consumer search / platform economics / experimental economics

●What do you enjoy most about research?

そんなもの ウチにはないよ

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

紆余曲折

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

紆余曲折

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

師匠のような

Kohei Matsumoto

Research field:My research fields cover the intersection of marketing, strategy, and public policy.

●What are your current research interests?

I am analyzing the relationship between firm competition and innovation. My current research topic includes the competitive response of national brand manufacturers to private labels.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

The most enjoyable moments are when I come up with a new research idea to extend current research findings and share such ideas with my colleagues.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

I would say accumulating research findings.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I enjoyed studying firms’ rise and fall at a management strategy seminar as a bachelor’s student, which led me to become a researcher.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

By analyzing companies, I would like to provide important managerial implications.

Hamza Umer

Research field:Economics

●What are your current research interests?

Lab and Field Experiments, Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics, Islamic Finance, Labor Market

●What do you enjoy most about research?

The opportunity to conduct economic experiments with diverse people and understand unique factors (such as religion) that influence decision-making is the most interesting aspect of my research.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

A systematic analysis of behavior in different contexts.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I always enjoyed education and selecting research as a career was a natural choice for me. Along the way, my parents provided me the necessary strength to pursue my interests in research. Correspondingly, several professors have further inspired research interests in me and I hope to emulate their footsteps.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

At the moment there are three key goals. First, I would like to continue exploring unique factors that influence economic decisions. I believe such a research can enrich our understanding about unexplored aspects of decision-making that can ultimately help in micro-level policies. Second, I would like to continue field research (RCTs & Experiments) in the less developed societies and suggest evidence-based policies for enhancing wellbeing. Third, I would like to collaborate with other researchers and explore the application of economic experiments in the related research fields.

Hiroki Shinozaki

Research field:Mechanism Design / Market Design

●What are your current research interests?

Auctions

●What do you enjoy most about research?

It’s fun when an idea takes shape.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

For me, research is like a curry party.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I have been enlightened.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I would like to dedicate myself to research like a rhinoceros.

Junichi Kikuchi

Research field:Macroeconomics

●What are your current research interests?

Expectation / Inflation / Consumption / Measurement

●What do you enjoy most about research?

When embarking on new data and/or new projects

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

A hobby that never gets boring

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

If I had to choose, I would say the experience of devoting hour after hour in research in my graduate school years.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

A researcher who is not only enthusiastic in research but also education.

Makoto Kadowaki

Research field:Industrial Organization, Innovation Economics

●What are your current research interests?

Economic analysis of intellectual property rights, the relationship between information disclosure and technological progress, economic effects of platforms

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I always enjoy it. (I also enjoy when I’m not doing research)

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

A meritorious deed regardless of productivity

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I was curious whether it was something one could become simply by trying, so I gave it a shot

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

The kind whose opinion people think “Well, whether I agree or not, I should at least hear what this person has to say”

Etienne Makdissi

Research field:Family and Labor Economics

●What are your current research interests?

Marriage Formation and Location Choice

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Satisfying my curiosity

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Improving our understanding of society

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Desire to explain why society is structured as it is, and to try to find out how to improve it.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Better understanding of the relationship between family and socio-economic structures.

Elnura Baiaman kyzy

Research field:Mainly macroeconomics, with a focus on monetary and fiscal policy, uncertainty and, a love for Bayesian estimation

●What are your current research interests?

Currently I am working on stochastic volatility models and nonlinear filters.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Uncovering new insights and solving both old and new puzzles

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

A long journey of exploring new ideas and solutions

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

The amazing women in science!

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Keep exploring, keep solving, and keep enjoying my job!

Wenjiao Hu

Research field:International economics, monetary economics

●What are your current research interests?

exchange rate linkage with economic variables in developing countries

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I often enjoy the feeling of attention-focusing during research.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

I treat academic research as a way to improve my personal integrity.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

To save the world.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I want to make more contribution to financial stability in international community

Satoshi Tsuda

Research field:Civil Law / Financial Law

●What are your current research interests?

Legal Status of Customers Depositing Assets with Financial Institutions

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Refining and Formulating My Ideas

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

A Purely Immersive Pursuit, Free from Position or Pretense

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Encountering a Theme That Captivated Me

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I would like to develop my research with a focus on interdisciplinary crossover.

Akira Hatsukawa

Research field:International law and constitutional law

●What are your current research interests?

Domestic application of international human rights treaties.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finding something new about human rights in Japan (in light of international law, not just the Constitution of Japan).

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Climbing (hard and exhausting, but can also be rewarding with a magnificent view).

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

A question I had when I was an undergraduate: why are international standards of human rights not necessarily discussed frequently and sufficiently in Japan?

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Bridging international law and constitutional law, which would contribute to better human rights protection in Japan.

Fumi Yoshimoto

Research field:The European Union Law

●What are your current research interests?

The European Parliament election 2024

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Sharing ideas with others

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Accumulation of the results we never know unless we try

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

One thing led to another and I ended up being a researcher.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I wish I could become a researcher like my supervisors and the colleagues.

Takashi Katsumata

Research field:European legal history

●What are your current research interests?

Relationship between different laws and validity of local law in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finding a topic that hasn’t been noticed in previous research in historical materials.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Adding a piece of findings to the accumulated body of studies.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Interest in “ius commune” from a European legal history class.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

To learn to use clear language.

Akimune Yoshida

Research field:Comparative Law and Animal Law

●What are your current research interests?

Comparative Legal Culture, Animal’s Legal Status, and Education and Research of Japanese Law in English

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finding out the relevance between things that seem unrelated.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Improvement of arguments through discussion across time and space.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My respectful mentors and Seminaristen changed my life.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

My future goal is to contribute to academia and society.

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Research field:Law

Appointed period: January 1st, 2025 – December 31st, 2027.
Visting period in fiscal year 2024: January 14th, 2025 – February 28th, 2025.

●Self-introduction

I am a professor of law at Cambridge University. My Ph.D. was in labour law, and that continues to be my main interest, but I also teach and research in private law and company law. I am the director of an interdisciplinary research unit which brings together social scientists from several fields. I have collaborated with economists and sociologists in empirical studies which have both a quantitative and a qualitative dimension. Recently I have been researching the relationship between law and artificial intelligence, which is an exciting but also challenging new field.

●What are your current research interests?

Currently, I am researching the implications for law of AI. In this fast-moving field my main concern is the study how legal rules can be represented as data and then analysed using machine leaning and related computational techniques. I am interested in exploring the statistical foundations of machine learning and in how statistics as a field understands causality, which may help us to understand how law approaches the same set of issues. I am interested in exploring how a data-led approach to legal analysis can help us understand the role law plays in constituting economic institutions and behaviour, in labour and other markets.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

The opportunity to be creative and to push forward knowledge and understandings is what attracts people to research, I think. Academic researchersa are fortunate to be able to choose the topics they work on much of the time, although their work can also be channeled by by funding bodies, and should respond to society’s needs. In my research I generally work in a team, often with specialists from other disciplines, and this can be especially rewarding, although it can require a lot of work and also patience!

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Finding out new things.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

The questions I had about my original field, labour law, which I didn’t feel were fully answered by the then state of the art. Also, the example of my mentors.

●Message to young researchers?

Do not be discouraged if you feel that your fellow researchers don’t always understand you or don’t seem to think that your field or approach are interesting. This probably means that you are on the track to finding out something really important!

Prasada Rao Emeritus Professor, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Research field:Economics/Econometrics

Appointed period: October 1st, 2024 – December 31st, 2027.
Visting period in fiscal year 2024: March 17th, 2025-April 18th, 2025.

●What are your current research interests?

Index Number Methods for Spatial and Temporal Comparisons; Comparisons of Prices and Real Incomes; Modelling Income Distributions and Measurement of Global and Regional Inequality and Poverty; Measurement of Efficiency and Productivity

●What do you enjoy most about research?

The challenge of problem solving and providing new insights in my discipline and areas of research.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Research to me is a way of life, thinking and providing solutions to problems in my discipline. Ability to provide new insights and solutions gives me great joy and satisfaction.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I was inspired by my teachers and outstanding scholars who taught me as a student at Indian Statistical Institute.

●Message to young researchers

Enjoy your research and do research for its own sake and not for the sake of publications. Once you enjoy research, other results follow automatically. Doing research is not an occupation and not a 9 am to 5 pm job, it is a 24/7 engagement. Finally, when you are confronted with a problem don’t go and look for solutions in books and papers – try to think about the problem and try to solve it yourself! Good luck and just enjoy!

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

Research field:Social Science and Health

Appointed period: April 1st, 2024 – March 31st, 2025.
Visting period in fiscal year 2024: December 2nd, 2024-December 31st, 2024.

●Self-introduction

Professor Maria Lohan is Chair in Social Science and Health and UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast. She is also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Studies (HIAS) at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo Japan.
Professor Lohan’s research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality.
Within this field Professor Lohan has advanced a focus on engaging men and boys in fostering SRHR for women and girls, as well as for men/boys. She has focussed on achieving this through co-designing, implementing and evaluating relationship and sexuality education (in schools and in prison settings). This work has a multi-country focus in the UK, Ireland, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It has included the largest randomised controlled trial ever of a relationship and sexuality education programme and the first trial to include a prospective health economic evaluation.
Professor Lohan works as a consultant to the World Health Organization where she has led systematic reviews of the global evidence on male engagement in SRHR and gender equality. Following compilation of the evidence, Professor Lohan was commissioned by WHO to lead an international team to conduct a global priority setting exercise on ‘Masculinities and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’. The results were presented to international ministries at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in New York 2024.
Professor Lohan also works as a consultant to UNESCO and was commissioned by UNESCO in 2023 to compile an overview of the systematic review evidence on comprehensive sexuality education globally. She is a partner in the UNFPA/UNESCO Global Partnership Forum on Comprehensive Sexuality Education. UNESCO recently published a feature interview with Maria on this work.
Professor Lohan has worked closely with policy makers in the UK and Ireland and convened a ‘Six nations policy makers forum on Relationship and Sexuality Education(RSE)’. She has published widely in high rankings international peer-reviewed journals including the BMJ, The Lancet Public Health. She has led over ten international team studies as principal investigator with research funding gained from the National Institute of Health and Care research, the Medical Research Council and Economic cand Social Research Council, amongst others. She has contributed as a team member to many more. Recently, she co-published with HIAS member Assistant Professor Mizanur Rahman in the Lancet Global Health.
She is keen teacher of graduate students and mentor for early career staff. She looks forward to meeting staff and students at HIAS for the duration of her visiting position in 2024; 2025 and 2026.

●What are your current research interests?

Health and Gender Equality , especially Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and especially men’s/boys’ engagement in SRHR

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I enjoy engaging with different perspectives and i especially enjoy learning about multi-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Finding out what you can, the best way that you can

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I guess I liked reading and writing – and university life – and I just kept at it. Once you get your PhD, you are qualified, and once you get your first job, you are on your way to a career.

●Message to young researchers

Don’t be afraid of the blank page, it gives you space to start (again).

René Belderbos Full Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven (Belgium)

Research field:Economics and Strategy of Innovation and Multinational Firms

Appointed period: April 1st, 2024 – March 31st, 2027.
Visting period in fiscal year 2024: September 20th, 2024-December 19th, 2024.

●Self-introduction

I am a full professor of Strategy at KU Leuven (Belgium) and part-time professor of International Corporate Strategy at Maastricht University and UNU-MERIT (The Netherlands). My research focuses on innovation strategies and international business strategies of multinational firms.

●What are your current research interests?

Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, R&D collaboration, Location decisions, Innovative entrepreneurship, Industry-Science linkages

●What do you enjoy most about research?

To be able to follow my curiosity.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Rigor & Relevance
●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My first efforts to do research for my Master thesis.

●Message to young researchers

Collaborate and learn, following your curiosity.