Weatherhead Program on US-Japan Relations Associates, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA. Deadline: 15 December 2024.
The roughly 16 Associates who join the Program include businesspeople, government officials, journalists, and scholars. They are primarily from Japan and the United States, but the Program has also hosted Associates from Australia, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
The Program also offers postdoctoral fellowships during the 2025-26 academic year. They seek applications from outstanding recent PhDs in the social sciences who are conducting research that illuminates Japan’s relations with the rest of the world in the broadest sense. Applications are welcome from anthropology, business, economics, history, international relations, law, political science, psychology, public health, public policy, and sociology, among other fields. Scholars may examine domestic issues that bear on Japan’s external relations or problems that it shares with other countries, and projects that compare Japan’s experience cross-nationally are encouraged. The postdoctoral fellowship is a twelve-month appointment, in residence in the Boston area, that begins in either August or September.
The Program was founded in 1980 based on the belief that the United States and Japan have become so interdependent that the problems they face require cooperation. Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Program enables scholars and outstanding professionals from government, business, finance, journalism, NGOs, and other fields to come together at Harvard. Over the academic year, they conduct independent research and participate in an ongoing dialogue with Harvard faculty and students, and with others from the greater Cambridge-Boston community.
She authored the book Cultural Paradigms Across Chinese, English, and Spanish-Speaking Worlds (Edwin Mellon, 2014), and edited the book Multilingualism in Its Multiple Dimensions (forthcoming in 2024 at IntechOpen). Dr. Yang is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, as well as regional and national teaching awards.
Her research focuses on interpersonal communication and business communication and she uses qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her deep passion for international education evolved when she was asked to teach intercultural communication. That experience led to faculty exchanges, teaching study abroad, a Fulbright Scholar award to Uzbekistan, and grant work in Uzbekistan. She continuously seeks opportunities to blend her interests with international education and research initiatives. She received an internal International Service Award in 2023.
Her research focuses on African communication research and education, the role of women in grassroots peacebuilding initiatives in post-conflict societies in Eastern Africa, relations between East African refugee and host communities in Central Minnesota, and critical service-learning as a pedagogical practice in peace education. Her work has received national and international recognition. She coordinates a nationally and internationally recognized award-winning service-learning project in Central Minnesota, has won NCA IICD top faculty paper, and co-edited award winning books 
Elise has a background in European affairs and extensive experience in the field of international relations and diplomacy from the capacity building and research perspectives, as well as on the topic of democracy and citizen participation. She has developed projects strengthening administrative cooperation and diplomatic skills in bilateral and regional programmes. She has also designed and monitored national training programmes for experts deployed in EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) missions.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 