I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley and the Project Director of the Berkeley APEC Study Center. I am currently conducting fieldwork in Japan in affiliation with the Institute of Social Science at The University of Tokyo. My research deals broadly with the nexus of comparative politics and international relations in East Asia, and my dissertation looks at the influence of inter-bureaucratic competition and cross-national coalitions on the Japanese foreign policymaking process. I am also interested in East Asian regional institutional architecture, Japanese and Chinese political economy, organizational theory, networks, and trade-security linkages. My work has been published in Asian Survey and Issues and Insights. I have also co-edited two books with Vinod Aggarwal, Responding to a Resurgent Russia: Russian Policy and Responses from the European Union and the United States (2011) and Linking Trade, Traditional Security, and Human Security: Lessons from Europe and the Americas and Implications for Asia (forthcoming). I hold an M.A in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a double B.A. in Political Science and Japanese, Cum Laude with College Honors, from the University of Washington at Seattle.

Prior to joining the Political Science department at Berkeley, I spent a year teaching English at four public junior high schools in Niigata, Japan under the auspices of the Japan Exchange & Teaching (JET) Programme. My interest in contemporary policy issues led me to work briefly at the Washington D.C. headquarters of both the U.S. Department of State (Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Office of Regional and Security Policy) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Office of Water). I have also participated in a number of Track Two diplomatic dialogues in Asia and the U.S. through the Pacific Forum CSIS and its Young Leaders Program.

My research has been generously funded by the Japan Foundation, the Blakemore Freeman Foundation, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Education, the Beinecke Foundation, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, the Mary Gates Foundation, and various institutions at UC Berkeley such as the Center for Japanese Studies, the Institute of East Asian Studies, the Graduate Division, and the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science. More information is available in the Curriculum Vitae section.