Her Imperial Highness
Princess Takamado

Minister Masatsugu Odaira 

Minister of Public Affairs at the Embassy of Japan in the United States of America 

Mr. Masatsugu Odaira, Minister of Public Affairs at the Embassy of Japan in the United States of America, assumed his present position in September 2025.   

Minister Odaira joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998 after graduating from Tokyo University’s Faculty of Law, and has since served mainly in the areas of China affairs and International Law. He most recently served as Director of the First China and Mongolia Division (2024-25) and as Director of the International Legal Affairs Division (2021-24).  

Minister Odaira has also worked in Japan-US affairs, in both economic and security matters, serving in the North American Affairs Bureau (2008-10, 2012-13). Additionally, while serving as Deputy Director in the National Security Secretariat (2014), he worked on legal issues in Japanese security policy regarding the Japanese Constitution in the context of the Right of Self-Defense.   

Minister Odaira has served as Executive Assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (2010-12) and to the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs (2018-21). He has also served abroad in China as Counsellor (Political Section) of the Embassy of Japan in the People’s Republic of China (2014-17). 

Dr. Kent E. Calder

Edwin O. Reischauer Professor 

Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies 

Kent E. Calder directs the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and previously served as the school’s Interim Dean in 2021, Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation from 2018 to 2020, and director of Asia Programs from 2016 to 2018. 

Prior to SAIS, Calder served as special advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), professor at Princeton University, lecturer on government at Harvard, and as the first executive director of Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations. Calder received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he worked under the direction of Edwin O. Reischauer. 

A specialist in East Asian political economy, Calder lived and researched in Japan for eleven years and across East Asia for four years. In 2014, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. Calder’s recent publications include: Eurasian Maritime Geopolitics (2025); Global Political Cities: Actors and Arenas of Influence in International Affairs (2021); Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration (2019); Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan (2018); Singapore: Smart City, Smart State (2017); Asia in Washington (2014); and The New Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First Century Eurasian Geopolitics (2012). 

Shihoko Goto

Vice President of Programs,  
Director of the Asia Program,  
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) 

Shihoko Goto is the Vice President of Programs and Director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). 

Goto comes to FPRI from the Woodrow Wilson Center, where she served as the Director of the Indo-Pacific Program, leading research and programming on US interests in the world’s most dynamic region. Goto’s research focuses on geoeconomic interests across the Indo-Pacific, particularly on economic relations between the United States and Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. She is also a Senior Fellow for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and an executive board member of the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C. 

Goto started her career as a financial journalist with Dow Jones Newswires covering international political economy. She has received numerous journalism fellowships including the Freeman Foundation’s Jefferson journalism fellowship at the East-West Center and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s journalism fellowship for the Salzburg Global Seminar. She continues to contribute regularly to numerous US and Asian publications, including as a columnist for The Diplomat. 

She received an MA in International Political Theory from the Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University, Japan, and a BA in Modern History from Trinity College, University of Oxford. 

Kihachiro Nishiura

Nishiura Style

Kihachiro Nishiura is a descendant of Nishiura Enji, the founder of the Nishiura-yaki school of ceramics, which was highly acclaimed in the Meiji Era. His “Nishiura Style” exhibitions of incense, floral arrangements, calligraphy, and other art forms have been enthusiastically received in Japan and around the world. 

Teruko Wada 

Executive Director, Keidanren USA 

Teruko WADA is the Executive Director of Keidanren USA. As head of Keidanren’s Washington DC office, she leads its public affairs activities in strengthening the U.S.-Japan economic relationship and raising the profile of Japanese businesses in the U.S.  

Teruko has extensive experience and knowledge in public policy advocacy both domestic and international throughout her career at Keidanren. Prior to her current position, she was the Director of International Affairs at Keidanren headquarters in Tokyo responsible for trade policy, economic security, relationship building of Japanese businesses with countries such as U.S, EU, and Canada and policy engagement with multilateral organizations/fora including G7/B7, G20/B20, WTO, OECD/BIAC and APEC/ABAC. Prior to her career in the international field, she engaged in policy advocacy mainly in the areas of business legislations (antitrust, corporate, civil law, consumer protections, corporate governance, and financial regulations), taxation, defense/space industrial policies, energy and regulatory reform. 

Teruko earned her B.A. in law from Waseda University and LL.M. from the Graduate School of Law and Politics of the University of Tokyo.  She was granted the Fulbright Scholarship and received her LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center with distinction. She is also admitted to the NY bar. 

She is an avid volunteer for Girl Scouting for many years, serving as Chair/President of Girl Scouts of Japan for 6 years (2009-2011 & 2019-2023) and the World Board Member for World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) for 6 years (2011-2017). 

Atsutoshi Nishikawa 

Washington Bureau Chief, NHK 

Atsutoshi Nishikawa is a journalist at NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s public broadcaster. He began his career in 2001, covering crime, natural disasters, and local politics in western Japan. 

He later joined NHK’s international news division and has reported on global affairs from various parts of the world. From 2012 to 2015, he was based in Cairo as NHK’s Middle East and Africa correspondent, reporting from more than 20 countries and territories across the region. 

He has been posted to Washington, D.C. twice, first serving as a White House correspondent under the first Trump administration and currently as the Bureau Chief. As the Bureau Chief, his coverage includes U.S. politics and social issues, international relations, and global issues as well as the evolving information environment and the challenges facing journalism for a broad international audience. 

Mariko Baika/ まりこバイカ

Mariko Baika is a bilingual Japanese voice actor and actor based in the Washington, DC area. 

Originally from Tokyo, she moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies in International Politics at the University of California, San Diego. After working for a consulting firm in the DC area as a project manager for 10 years, she decided to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an actor, eventually finding her passion in both on-camera and voice work. 

Her voice can be heard in live-action dramas, films, audio dramas, audiobooks, corporate narration, and commercials. Her credits include English dubbing for Lady Ochiba in SHOGUN (FX), as well as a recent UNIQLO commercial aired in Japan. She’s a big anime fan!