My research focuses on the international relations of East Asia, in particular Japan and its relations with the United States and China. I have published books, articles, and chapters on a variety of topics including regional territorial disputes, military bases, and US influence on Japanese policy-making. I am also interested in how international politics affects everyday life in a range of ways, from food consumption to the environment as well as rural policy and immigration. 

Many years ago, before I became a PhD student, I was a certified teacher of English as a foreign language for three years, working in Spain and Japan. Although there is a huge difference in the form and content of language teaching and social science, I can still trace my teaching philosophy back to that first pedagogy course and those days in Madrid and Kobe. Language teaching is all about the student’s learning process, and the teacher becomes a facilitator to that process. Standing and delivering, reassuringly traditional as it might be, was just not done. 

This informs my teaching to this day. Although lectures still have a place - they can motivate students and excite their interest a topic - they are not a method to be used in isolation. I strive to engage students through a series of mini-lectures, punctuated by group discussions, reflections, and debates. 

I teach courses on international relations, grand strategy, Japanese society and politics, as well as comparative politics of Asia.