Nobuko Kayashima is a Senior Research Advisor at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. Since graduating from Kyoto University in 1982, she has been associated with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the international aid agency of the Japanese government, where she has played a critical role in planning and executing JICA's education cooperation programs. Throughout her tenure at JICA, she has held several key positions, including Senior Vice President, Vice President, Director/Deputy Director of JICA Ogata Research Institute, and Director General of the Human Development Department. She has also served as a committee/board member for several government and civil society organizations in the field of education. While assuming managerial positions in JICA, she has been actively involved in academic research activities. She earned her Ph.D. from Nagoya University for her research on the internationalization of Japanese universities, and she has made substantial contributions to various publications, including "Japan’s International Cooperation in Education" (co-editor, Springer, 2022).Miki Sugimura is a professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Sophia University in Japan. She received her M.Ed. and PhD from the University of Tokyo. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Visiting Professor at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Senior Program Officer at the Research Center for Science Systems at Japan Society for the Promotion Science (JSPS-RCSS), and Associate Member of the Science Council of Japan. She has served as President of the Japan Comparative Education Society (JCES) and Board Member of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES). She served as a member of the Central Council for Education in Japan, the JapanNational Commission for UNESCO, and the International Expert Group on the revision of the 1974 Recommendation by UNESCO.Kazuo Kuroda is a professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University in Japan. He received his B.A. from Waseda University, M.A. from Stanford University and Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Trustee of Waseda University, as well as Chair of the Research Standing Committee of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES). He has also served as a member of the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, as well as numerous committees of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), other government agencies, and UNESCO. Kuroda has also served as dean of several departments at Waseda University. His recently authored and co-editedbook publications include A History of Japan’s International Cooperation in Education (2023, the University of Tokyo Press) and Sustainable Development Disciplines for Humanity (2023, Springer).Yuto Kitamura is a professor at the Graduate School of Education and Director of the Center for Advanced School Education and Evidence-Based Research at the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has worked as an Assistant Education Specialist at UNESCO in France and taught as an Associate Professor at Nagoya University and Sophia University in Japan. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the George Washington University, Visiting Professor at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, and has been serving as Special Advisor to the Rector of Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Member of the Board of Education at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and Associate Member of the Science Council of Japan.
