Associate Professor, at the Institute for International Stragety of Tokyo International University

Former Project Assistant Professor/Project Research Associate (Aug. 2021-Aug. 2024)

His areas of specializations are Asian Politics and International Relations, Strategy and Defense, Transport Security

Working Group 4 on the Emerging Issues in Security Studies
Working Group 5 on Indo-Pacific Transport Security (Chair)

Sub-Working Group 1 on Satellite Imagery Analysis Project

Sub-Working Group 2 on Tabletop Exercises (Chair)

Ryo HINATA-YAMAGUCHI is a Project Assistant Professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo; Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum. Ryo has presented, published, and consulted on a variety of topics relating to defense and security, and transport governance in the Indo-Pacific. Ryo previously served as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (reserve) and also held positions at the Pusan National University, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, FM Bird Entertainment Agency, International Crisis Group Seoul Office, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Embassy of Japan in Australia, and the Japan Foundation Sydney Language Centre. Ryo received his PhD from the University of New South Wales, MA in Strategic and Defense Studies and BA in Security Analysis from the Australian National University and was also a Korea Foundation Language Training Fellow.

Twitter: @tigerrhy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tigerrhy/
Blog (Japanese): https://note.com/tigerrhy/

Visiting Senior Research Fellow
Assistant Dean of E-Track Programs and Professor, Institute for International Strategy, Tokyo International University

Christopher Lamont is Assistant Dean of E-Track Programs and Professor of International Relations. Previously, he held a tenured position at the University of Groningen, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulster. He was also previously a Fulbright scholar at the University of Zagreb in Croatia. He holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow and has published widely on human rights and transitional justice. His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Democracy, the International Journal of Human Rights, Global Policy, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and Human Rights Review. He also co-edited, New Crifical Spaces in Transitional Justice (with Arnaud Kurze, Indiana University Press, 2019) and is the author of two research methods textbooks, Research Methods in International Relations (Sage 2015, second edition 2021), and Research Methods in Politics and International Relations (with Mieczyslaw Boduszyński, Sage 2020). In addition to his scholarly work, his writings have also appeared in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage.

Aiko Shimizu is the Japan Digital Inclusion Lead at Microsoft, where she focuses on AI, cybersecurity, digital skilling, and sustainability, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Pacific Forum. 

Prior to her current role, Aiko has worked in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors across the United States, Japan, and Germany, including at Twitter, BMW and Daimler urban mobility joint venture SHARE NOW (formerly car2go), Bloomberg, the United Nations, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. She has also been selected as a U.S.-Japan Council Emerging Leader, an Atlantic Council Millennium Leadership Fellow, a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader, a Salzburg Global Fellow, and an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader. Aiko received her graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She received her Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Chicago.

Research interests: Artificial Intelligence (AI), technology, cybersecurity, sustainability, mobility, energy 

Dr. Kristi Govella is Director of the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs and an Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She specializes in the intersection of economics and security in international relations, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region and Japan. Dr. Govella’s research has examined topics such as economic statecraft, trade, investment, multinational firms, alliances, regional institutional architecture, and the governance of the global commons. In addition to her publications in journals and edited books, she is the co-editor of two books: Linking Trade and Security: Evolving Institutions and Strategies in Asia, Europe, and the United States (2013) and Responding to a Resurgent Russia: Russian Policy and Responses from the European Union and the United States (2012). She serves as an Adjunct Fellow at the East-West Center and Pacific Forum and as Editor of the journal Asia Policy. 

Dr. Govella was previously Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Asia Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, and an Associate Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. She has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Research interests: economic statecraft, economic security, economic coercion, trade, investment, firms, alliances, regional institutional architecture, maritime security, cyberspace, outer space, non-traditional security

Emma Verges is a Program Assistant with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative (IPSI) within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. With a background in Chinese history, culture, and politics, she produces critical analyses and forward-thinking strategies in support of the Initiative’s work on the most pressing issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Building on her knowledge of international order through the lens of international human rights and immigration, Emma has expanded her scope of work to include US-Japan-ROK Trilateral Cooperation, Integrated Deterrence of Adversary Limited Nuclear Use in East Asia, and Trans-Atlantic-Pacific coordination to defend the rules-based international system.

 

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Emma received her master’s degree in global affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her time in China lends a unique perspective to her work. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Russian Studies from Macalester College. 

Research interests: China, Russia, human rights, immigration, soft power issues

Tonny Dian Effendi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia.

He was a visiting research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Japan, the Institute of International Relations (IIR)-National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan, as well as a visiting scholar at the Department of International Relations and Public Administration,
Universidade do Minho, Portugal. He experienced in conducting research under the Sumitomo Foundation’s Japan-related research program, the Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange (SEASREP) Program’s research
program, the Australian National University (ANU) Indonesia Project, the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) research-publication program, and the
international collaborative research under the Ministry of Higher Education, Republic of Indonesia. He obtained his Bachelor of Social Science in International Relations from Universitas Jember in Indonesia, while his master’s degree was obtained from Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (Master of Science in Sociology) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (Master of Social Science- by research in International Relations). Currently, he is a PhD candidate from the Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan.

Research interests: International Relations; diplomacy; constructivism; East Asia regional studies; China; Indonesia; diaspora

Dr. Maria Tanyag is Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. She specializes in critical and feminist approaches to global peace and security, focusing on the Asia Pacific region, and Southeast Asia in particular. She was selected as one of the inaugural International Studies Association (ISA) Emerging Global South Scholars in 2019, as resident Women, Peace, and Security Fellow at Pacific Forum (Hawaii) in 2021, and as a British Academy Visiting Fellow (2023). She is author of the forthcoming book The Global Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health with Oxford University Press. Her latest publications are available via

 ResearchGate.

Research interests: Global politics of sexual and reproductive health; global political economy and social reproduction in crisis settings; feminist critiques of postconflict and postdisaster crisis response; feminist methodologies in IR.

Katherine Yusko is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where she supports research and analysis of US relations in East Asia, transatlantic-Pacific alliance building, and nuclear/conflict deterrence strategies. Her most recent research focused on identifying areas for US-Papua New Guinea cooperation on climate security challenges.

 

Yusko earned her BA in Culture and Conflict from New York University with a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. She holds a master’s degree in International Affairs, with a concentration in International Security Policy and a specialization in International Conflict Resolution, from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Atlantic Council Assistant Director, Indo-Pacific Security Initiative