FACULTY ADVISORS

MIKE MOCHIZUKI, PH.D.

Mike M. Mochizuki is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and holds Elliott School’s endowed chair in Japan-U.S. Relations in Memory of Gaston Sigur.  Dr. Mochizuki comes to the George Washington University from the Brookings Institution where he was a senior fellow.  He was formerly with RAND where he served as co-director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy.  He has taught at the University of Southern California and at Yale University.  He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.  His most recent publications include Japan Reorients: The Quest for Wealth and Security in East Asia (2000), Toward a True Alliance: Restructuring U.S.-Japan Security Relations (1997), and Japan: Domestic Change and Foreign Policy (1995).  He is now writing a book entitled The New Strategic Triangle: the U.S.-Japan Alliance and the Rise of China.  His research interests include Japanese politics and foreign policy, U.S.-Japan relations, and East Asian security.

SAM PORTER, PH.D.

Samuel P. Porter is a historian of modern Japan and the Imperial Japanese military. He received his Ph.D. in Japanese history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020. His research interests include the troubled demobilization and reintegration of Japanese Second World War veterans, little-known postwar military operations conducted by Japanese forces in northern China and Southeast Asia after August 1945, Japanese cinema, and ongoing efforts at historical reconciliation in East Asia. and the spring of 1946, postwar Japanese cinema and depictions of war memory. He currently divides his time between teaching parttime at George Washington University and raising his one-year-old son.

DAQING YANG, PH.D.

Daqing Yang is Associate Professor of History and International Affairs.  Dr. Yang received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.  From 2004 to 2007 he served as a consultant to the Interagency Working Group on Nazi War Crimes and the Imperial Japanese Government Documents at the United States National Archives. He has taught at Harvard University, University of Tokyo, Waseda university, and Yonsei University. He is a recipient of the ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies fellowship and the Abe Fellowship sponsored by the Center of Global Partnership and Social Science Research Council.  He is author of a book entitled, Technology of Empire (2010), which deals with the telecommunications networks and Japanese expansion before 1945.  Among his edited books are Rethinking Historical Justice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia (2006) and Toward a History Beyond Borders (2012). His publications have appeared in American Historical Review, Modern Asian Studies, Critical Asian Studies, Gunji Shigaku 軍事史学, and Shisō 思想.  His research interests include modern Japan and East Asia, and the history of science and technology.

Research Assistants

Kyle Lim, Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs

Leo Yamaguchi, Undergraduate exchange student, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University

Former Research Assistants and Associates

Yu Jung Ahn, Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs

Julia Pitrowski, Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

Andrew Butt, Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs

Qiuyang (Marx) Wang, B.A. ’20, Department of Political Science

Haruka Akashi, Ph.D. Student, History Department

Rosa Kim, Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs

Marguerite Wedeman, Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs

Kazuhiro Obayashi, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science.

Yuichiro Mitsutomi, M.A. candidate in Asian Studies.

Maiko Ichihara, Ph.D. student, Political Science Department

Sayaka Chatani, Ph.D. student, Political Science Department

Diana Xiong, Doctoral student, History Department

Sharon Chamberlain, Doctoral candidate, History Department

Margaret K. Gnoinska, Doctoral candidate, History Department

Jeffrey Hornung, Ph.D. candidate, Political Science Department

James Reilly, Ph.D. candidate, Political Science Department

Jiyeong Rhim, Ph.D. student, Political Science Department

Logan Wright, Ph.D. candidate, Political Science Department