Professors' profile

Major

Classes

Hobbies

Favorite City

The Happiest Thing about being a professor in GIS

Advice for future students

Global Business Management; Brand Management; Negotiation; Strategic Alliance

Global Strategic Management; Brand Management; Business Negotiation 

Playing sports, especially jogging🏃, tennis🎾, soccer⚽️, and skateboarding🛹.

Los Angeles and Berkeley, California🇺🇸

To make a positive contribution to making the world a better place.

Believe in your own potential!

Media Studies, Performance Studies, Asian Studies

Introduction to Media Theory, Manga Studies, Performance Studies, Creative Industries, Media and the Nation, Media and Globalization, Media Across Borders Seminar

Photography📸, reading📚, running🏃

Kyoto🇯🇵

I enjoy being able to teach interested and active students about the topics I have researched and am passionate about. The students are very engaged in the class discussions and always have interesting things to say. Because of this, classes are very lively, fun, and stimulating. Many students also share similar global experiences, often having lived abroad and/or across multiple cultures even in Japan, and with at least two languages. Having grown up with comparable experiences, I enjoy teaching at GIS, where all the students, regardless of background, are learning to navigate this global world in their own ways. It is always a joy to see how the students grow, learn, and explore their own interests and ideas, working with the intellectual and academic tools we work with in the classroom, taking them in their own directions that are meaningful for their lives and careers.

Read widely and in various subjects, following your interests and topics you find you are excelling in. Reading is fundamental to learning how to write, as well as how to express yourself. Part of the goal of a university degree is so that you can not just learn about a certain subject, but how to do research, consider the ideas, bring them together to form a cohesive argument, and learn how to articulate it. These are incredibly important skills for any job as well as how to effectively live your daily life. Reading is at the base of this. Look to both nonfiction and fiction, but also in other experiences and media. For instance, go to museums and art galleries, seek out music, attend theater performances, and explore different types of food. These experiences will enrich your life and often aide in your learning, as well as better inform you about what type of profession you would like to pursue. 

Tourism Management

Introduction to Tourism Studies (100-level), Tourism Development in Japan & Event Management (200-level), Cultural Tourism & Services Marketing (300-level) and the Tourism Management Seminar (400-level).

Reading📚, spending time with my family & cooking/baking🥘🍰

Edinburgh, my home city. Despite having travelled to over 30 countries, it remains my favourite city󠁿󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

It's seeing students develop as people during their time here, and the contribution we can make to this. Their ability to establish connections between the various courses they learn at GIS is also rewarding, and I am regularly impressed with the ideas & opinions of my 300- & 400-level students.

Explore our broad curriculum. Be open minded to new concepts and viewpoints. Be brave enough to share your opinions in class; be brave enough to admit you may be wrong or other's ideas may be better; be brave enough to ask for help if you need it - we're here for you.

Education, TESOL and Second language learning

TESOL Ⅰ~Ⅳ, English Teaching in Primary Scool, Comparative Education, and Seminar courses

Checking antique shops/things, wallpapers, horse riding🐎, etc.

London🇬🇧, Rome🇮🇹 and so on.

One of my happiest experiences in GIS is related to the enjoyment I get from teaching and interacting with students in my classes, including seminar sessions, and chatting about daily matters. These interactions are not only enriching but also build strong connections. Even after graduation, many students stay in touch, sharing updates about their lives directly or through emails. It fills me with joy to see them establish their own lives, sometimes even with their families, and to talk with them in different contexts compared to when they were students. Witnessing their growth and success, both personally and professionally, is incredibly rewarding. It reminds me of the profound impact education has on individuals and their futures. These ongoing relationships are a testament to the lasting bonds formed during their time here, and they continue to inspire me as an educator.

It is a joy and an honour to share this brief message with you. Learning with us in GIS not only aids in advancing your life and career but also elevates your spirit. Our community is dedicated to providing you with the tools, knowledge, and support you need to succeed. You can embark on an amazing, lifelong journey that is filled with opportunities for growth, discovery, and achievement. Embrace each moment, challenge yourself, and take advantage of all the resources available to you. We are all looking forward to seeing you join the GIS community. Welcome aboard, and here’s to a bright and fulfilling future!

English language and applied linguistics

Digital Writing and Publication; Language Social Media and Society; Academic Writing Skills etc.

Music♬, cycling🚲 and following my favourite football team⚽️, Nottingham Forest

I fell in love with Dubrovnik🇭🇷 when I visited back in the early 2000s, but I heard it has been ruined by overtourism now…

Getting to interact with a vibrant, diverse group of students in GIS!

Have confidence in your abilities and challenge the preconceptions you might have about the world.

Japanese Literature

Intro to Literature, Topics in Japanese Literature, Comparative Literature

Reading📚, running🏃, traveling✈️

Kyoto🇯🇵

I really enjoy interacting with our students. We have a remarkable community of students in the department, with a wide array of interests, backgrounds, and strengths, and goals. Bringing such a diverse set of ideas and experiences together in a single classroom makes for exciting and unexpected class discussions.

Students often choose GIS because they want to obtain a skillset useful for an international or transnational career. I think it's important to remember that the elements of such a skillset -- a cosmopolitan worldview, language competency, cultural fluency, flexibility -- are not necessarily abilities to be obtained, but more akin to habits that need to practiced continually, both as a student and beyond. Learning those skills never ends. You just keep trying to get a little better each day.

Social Psychology

Self and Culture Seminar, Advanced Topics in Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Quantitative Research Methods, Social Psychology 1, 2, and Introduction to Psychology 1.

listening to classical music🎵, making figures with clay, coloring🎨, solving jigsaw puzzles🧩, skiing⛷️

Geneva is my second hometown🇨🇭

I get to see students develop new skills, gain confidence, achieve what they want to achieve, and contribute to something important for society. Knowing that I played a part in it makes me really happy. I was also extremely happy when students chose me for the best teacher's award! 

Trust your instinct. If something doesn't feel right, then it's likely not good for you. If you like something, even if you don't know why, it's going to be good for you. Don't search for what you are good at, or what is easy for you--find what you like and try it. If you like it, you will get good at it.  

International Relations

International relations etc.

Mountain climbing🧗🏻, watching a noh performance🎭, visiting medieval and modern (modernism) architecture🏛️

Prague🇨🇿, Budapest🇭🇺,  Zermatt・Grindelwald🇨🇭

Being able to meet great seminar students and interact with them even after graduation

Meet people outside your circle of friends. Expand your vision and broaden your horizons!

Sociolinguistics

English as a Lingua Franca, Sociolinguistics, English Dialects around the World, Seminar: Diversity of English

Skiing⛷, fly fishing🎣, searching for unknown tumuli ‘kofun’ 

Gdańsk, Poland🇵🇱

GIS is a close-knit community of professors and students from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds, both domestic and international. Through daily interactions with these individuals, I constantly learn intriguing facts and innovative ideas that I would not encounter in any other workplace. I am curious about every research domain and often feel like I’m visiting departments overseas while staying in the centre of Tokyo.

The current century is an unprecedented age of plurilingualism. Most people around the world speak two or more languages in their daily lives, with English serving as a lingua franca. Additionally, non-native English speakers now outnumber native speakers by almost four to one. Despite the advances in machine translation systems, it seems to be a human instinct to communicate in one’s own voice, much like how everyone enjoys singing in karaoke even if they are not a professional singer. Respect other people’s speech and be proud of your accent as a part of your identity.

Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Ethics, History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Topics in Philosophy, Existentialism, Advanced Topics in Philosophy 1&2

listening to a lot of music♬, stand-up comedy, spending time with my family: My five-year-old son is a big fan of Hosei University's baseball team, so we like going to Tokyo Big 6 games together.⚾ My two-year-old daughter has a sweet tooth, and we have the mutual hobby of eating too much chocolate together.🍫

Tokyo🇯🇵

At some level, everyone wants to explore fundamental philosophical questions about themselves and the world. Studying philosophy helps reveal this intrinsic love for learning that can often get lost among other concerns in life. Moreover, philosophy intensifies this desire to understand—the more one comes to understand the world and oneself, the stronger the desire to seek this understanding grows. Helping students discover, cultivate, and sustain this sense of philosophical wonder and curiosity is deeply rewarding. I enjoy teaching at GIS because philosophy is best practiced through active dialogue, and proper dialogue can only happen in a small classroom setting, like what is provided at GIS. Moreover, as a liberal arts program, GIS is aimed at helping students develop a well-rounded character and skill set rather than simply acquiring information. Philosophy is an important part of this educational task.

Acquiring facts is not the primary value of a university education. The most valuable part of a university education is cultivating the skills needed to navigate a rapidly changing world with critical competence and a sense of ethical and personal purpose. Professors are here to help you realize this value, but we cannot do it for you. Gaining these skills requires actively engaging with courses through discussion and questions with fellow students and professors, and this is a choice students need to make. Therefore, I highly encourage students to take advantage of their time in university by being as active as they can in learning. This means asking questions, reading closely, listening intentively, and letting your doubts be a guide, rather than a roadblock, to becoming a better version of yourself. 

Quantitative Sociology, Queer and Feminist Studies

Introduction to Sociology; Introduction to Social Research Methods; Gender, Sexuality and Society; Race, Class and Gender (and more!)

Listening to Japanese boy pop music♬

Kyoto

I always enjoy learning from my students!

Be curious about the world around you. I hope to see you on Ichigaya campus!

Sociology

I am teaching only my seminar -- Intersectionality -- which looks at how multiple inequalities interconnect and affect the lives of people.  

Exercising -- swimming🏊 and strength training🏋️‍♀️

Kyoto

That I can engage students to think deeply about social issues. 

Keep an open mind and let yourself explore areas that you had never dreamed of studying or learning about. You might be pleasantly surprised.  

Information Management

Introduction to Programming, Data Visualization, Database Utilization, Big Data and Analytics, Digital Transformation, Digital Marketing, Science and Technology 

Travel✈️, Reading books📚

Sydney🇦🇺

GIS is such a positive environment where professors and students share ideas and academic advice rather freely especially during the class. It stimulates positive learning experience for students, and gives me good energy also. Especially as an instructor teaching tech-related courses, I see that although students are not very confident at first, they gradually gain confidence and interest in those classes. I feel very rewarded when I notice students with no IT background find their interest in IT, proactively take some of my classes, and get a job in digital marketing, engineering, or data science. 

GIS gives you a great opportunity to take a range of courses across various disciplines. I hope you try out various courses in the beginning and also pay attention to what is going on in the world and how you relate yourself to those changes. For example, if you find yourself interested in certain issues like Generative AI, data science, or digital platform, then you have a chance to take those classes and see how you like them. This applies to all other disciplines in GIS, so take a chance professionally!