EXCHANGE

Current Research Fellows

Yuko Kawato, a Japanese national, is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA, where she also works as teaching assistant leading discussion sessions on introduction to international relations and comparative politics, international conflict, and the politics and law of international human rights. She obtained her MA in Political Science from the same university in 2002 and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations. She is in the Philippines to gather data for her dissertation, which examines the impact of local anti-base movements on base policies in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.

Shizuko Miyahara Matsushima is a PhD student at the Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo, Japan. She obtained her Master of Arts in Education from the same university in 2004. She was also an exchange student at the Institute of the Library and Information Sciences of the University of the Philippines-Diliman from November 2005 to March 2006. Ms. Miyahara Matsushima worked as a librarian at the Mitaka City Library, Tokyo, Japan from April 1995 to March 2002 and at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from April 2000 to March 2001. She is the currently doing research on the efforts of Philippine government agencies and nongovernment organizations to provide public information, with special reference to policies on information distribution and management.

Susan Tamondong is a Visiting Study Fellow from April 2006 to June 2007 at the Queen Elizabeth House, Department of International Development of the University of Oxford in England, where she also has a confirmed D/Phil status. Ms. Tamondong is currently an Evaluation Specialist at the Operations Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank. She obtained her Master of Arts in International Communication/International Development from The American University, Washington DC, USA in 1989. Her research is entitled, “Development-Induced Involuntary Resettlement: A Case Study of Pantabangan in the Philippines.”

Akiko Watanabe is a Ph.D. student of Kyoto University, Japan. She has recently finished her pre-doctoral thesis entitled, “The Evolution and Transformation of Muslim Settler Communities in Metro Manila,” in which some parts were presented in the 3rd National Philippine Studies Conference in 2003. Presently, she is writing an ethnography of Muslims in Manila for her doctoral dissertation which aims to clarify the nature of the flow of people and networks among Southern Philippines, Manila and the Middle East.