Staff & Trustees

Trustees

• Fusae Nara (Chair)

  Fusae Nara is a litigator and leads the Japan Practice Team at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. She is one of the few Japanese-speaking litigators practicing in the U.S. She has represented multinational corporations headquartered in Japan in complex commercial disputes, class actions and international trade matters. She received her BA in International Law and MA in Public Administration with concentration in International Law from ICU, and received her JD from Hofstra University School of Law.

• Machi Dilworth (Secretary)

  Machi Fukuyama Dilworth most recently served as the Vice President for Gender Equality and Human Resource Development at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Prior to her role at OIST, she had a 33-year-long career in Washington D.C. as a government research administrator, including serving as the Associate Program Manager/ Associate Chief of Competitive Research Grants Office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Director for the Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation. While at NSF, Machi served as Head of the NSF Tokyo Office and concurrently Science & Technology Attache at the US Embassy from 2007 to 2010. In 2002 she was awarded the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award from the White House, and in 2007 was designated a fellow for both the American Society of Plant Biologists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Machi has always been conscious of the gender-based biases in scientific workplaces and Japanese society, and works for the professional and educational advancement of women at all levels. She received her B.A. in Natural Sciences at International Christian University and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Plant Biochemistry and Physiology at University of California at Los Angeles.

• Danny Ha (Treasurer)

  Danny is a lawyer with deep experience in the financial markets. He is currently working for Insight Investments, a subsidiary of BNY Mellon. He was previously US Counsel at Aberdeen Standard Investments, a global asset management company. Prior to Aberdeen, he was General Counsel of Arden Asset Management LLC, an investment firm specializing in hedge fund investments. Danny’s connection to ICU is through his junior year abroad during 1993-1994 academic year, where resided at 2nd Men’s Dormitory. Subsequently, Danny attended ICU’s summer language program in 1999. A lifelong student of history,  Danny’s interest in the field includes comparative culture between Korea and Japan. Danny received his bachelor’s degree from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, master’s degree in Japanese History from the University of Chicago and JD from Fordham University School of Law.

• Kieran Cavanna

  Kieran Cavanna is the Co-Founder and CIO of Old Farm Partners. Old Farm is a hedge fund allocation firm focusing on small and mid-sized hedge funds, as well as co-investment opportunities with $720m under management.  Prior to Old Farm, Mr. Cavanna worked at Soros Fund Management where he served as the Head of the External Manager Selection team working for CIO Scott Bessent. Mr. Cavanna and his team performed due diligence on and allocated to funds that deployed a wide variety of hedge fund strategies. Prior to Soros, Kieran was a Partner and the Head of Research at Titan Advisors, a $4b fund-of-hedge funds. In total Mr. Cavanna has allocated to hedge funds for 20 years. Mr. Cavanna started his financial career at KPMG Consulting as Senior Analyst. Mr. Cavanna graduated from the University of Richmond with a BA and received an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

• Mitsuhiro Kaneda

  Mitch Kaneda received his BA from ICU in 1986, and continued on to the ICU graduate school to receive his MA in Public Policy in 1988. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently works as the senior associate dean and director of the undergraduate program in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has been published in both the Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of Development Economics. Using his own experiences in higher education institutions, he hopes to support the development of higher education in Japan.

• Rie Kijima

  Rie Kijima is an Assistant Professor at Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. She has held various senior leadership positions, including serving as the Director of the Initiative for Education Policy and Innovation and the Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict, and Justice. Rie Kijima’s research addresses topics such as the politics of international assessments, the impact of education reforms, and STEAM education. She recently co-edited a book called Data for Accountability in Education. She is a member of the Fellows Advisory Committee of the United States Japan Foundation. In 2025, she was selected to the Advanced Leaders Collective of the U.S.-Japan Council. She is a co-founder of SKYLabo, an education non-profit organization that offers educational programs using design thinking. She previously worked at the World Bank to advance equity-focused education projects in Morocco, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Laos. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Stanford University, supported by the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship. She received her B.A. from ICU.

• Katherine Tegtmeyer Pak

  Katherine Tegtmeyer Pak is Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies and Department Chair of Asian Studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Kathy earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and her B.A. in East Asian Studies and Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Between college and graduate school, she worked at Toshiba Corporation’s Tokyo headquarters for two years, and she returned to Japan for 16 months of field research during graduate school. Before joining the St. Olaf faculty in 2003, she taught for five years at New College of Florida. Kathy teaches both broad international and comparative politics classes (Introduction to International Relations, Immigration and Citizenship) and Asia-focused classes (Asian Regionalism, Japanese Politics, Human Rights in Asia). She has published several papers on Japanese immigration and citizenship politics. She spent the 2009-10 academic year as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, thanks to a Fulbright Research Grant, investigating democratic ideals and political socialization. She also teaches a St. Olaf class based at the Asian Rural Institute, and is a member of the board of the American Friends of Asian Rural Institute.

• Susan Schmidt
  Susan Schmidt lived from 1972 to 1996 in Tokyo, where she worked as a staff editor of English-language books at the University of Tokyo Press. Currently she is Executive Director of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese, a 1,500-member professional organization of Japanese language educators in the United States. One of her major projects at AATJ is encouraging American college students to study abroad in Japan, and administrering a scholarship program for that purpose. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
• Kurt Tong

  Ambassador Kurt Tong is a Partner at The Asia Group, where he leads the firm’s work in Japan and the broader East Asia region.  Before joining The Asia Group, Ambassador Tong was an American diplomat for 30 years, serving in posts in Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines and in Washington DC.  From 2016 to 2019, he served as Consul General and Chief of Mission in Hong Kong and Macau. Prior to that, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department. He also served as the Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo from 2011 to 2014, and as Ambassador for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2011, leading the U.S. chairmanship of the organization.  Ambassador Tong attended Princeton University. He studied at ICU in 1981-82.

• Takeshi Ueshima

  Takeshi Ueshima is a founder and CIO of Heritage Fund Management, LLC, in New York, which specializes in alternative investments for institutional investors and high net worth individuals.  In addition, Mr. Ueshima serves as Chairman of the Board at OIST Foundation in New York, as well as Chairman of the Investment Committee at the United States-Japan Foundation. He is also a member of the International Committee of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a Fellow of UK World Fellowship, a Scott M. Johnson Fellow of the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, and a director for various other groups. Mr. Ueshima holds a B.A. in Economics from Fordham University.  He started his financial career at the Sumitomo Trust & Banking Company Ltd in Tokyo.  Mr. Ueshima also worked for UBS (formerly Paine Webber, Inc.) in New York.

• Gavin Whitelaw

  Gavin H. Whitelaw (Ph.D. Yale 2007) is a Sociocultural Anthropologist and Executive Director of Harvard University’s Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. His research focuses on issues of globalization, commerce, work, food and consumer culture, particularly in the context of contemporary Japan. Prior to coming to Harvard, he was Senior Associate Professor of Anthropology at International Christian University (ICU) and has served as Director of ICU’s Japan Studies Program. His writing appears in journals and edited volumes including Anthropology of Work Review, Gastronmica and Capturing Contemporary Japan (Hawaii University Press 2014).