The Japan ICU Foundation Board of Trustees welcomed two new members in April, Dr. Masako Shinn and Dr. Kenji Kushida.

Dr. Shinn earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at ICU, MBA from Harvard Business School, a master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Columbia University and recently completed a doctorate degree in design from the Bard Graduate Center in New York.

She is a partner of the publishing company, Graphis Inc. and founder of Graphis Asia. Dr. Shinn also serves on the Board of Trustees at the Asia Foundation and Japan Society. Her professional career has included senior positions at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Salomon Brothers, and Morgan Stanley.

“I am delighted to be joining JICUF board and to have a chance to support ICU’s unique vision for global education,” she says.

Dr. Kenji Kushida is a Japan Program Research Associate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. Having grown up in the suburbs of Tokyo and attended the American School in Japan, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include political economies of information technology, institutions of Silicon Valley, Japan’s political economy and the institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.

“I have seen some of the positive impact that JICUF has had on this institution that I admire greatly, so I am honored and excited for the chance to contribute,” says Dr. Kushida.

For more information on Dr. Kushida’s work and profile, please visit his personal website.

In addition to welcoming two new trustees, we would like to express our deep gratitude to the following four trustees who left the Board at the end of the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

Dr. Thomas Benson, President Emeritus of Green Mountain College in Vermont, is now the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Council for American Culture and Education (CACE).

Mr. Kurt Roeloffs, founder and principal of the investment firm Protean, completed his term as a trustee, but continues to serve on the JICUF’s investment committee.

Dr. Machi Dilworth, ICU alumna with a long and distinguished career at the National Science Foundation, has been appointed the Vice President for Gender Equality and Human Resource Development at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in April.

Finally,  Dr. Thomas Schoenbaum, who taught at ICU for ten years as Professor of Graduate Studies, continues to teach at the University of Washington in Seattle as the Harold S. Shefelman Professor of Law.