Although at least 400 million people suffer from seasonal allergies worldwide, the adverse effects of pollen on “non-health” outcomes, such as cognition and productivity, are relatively understudied. Using ambulance archives from Japan, we demonstrate that high pollen days are associated with increased accidents and injuries—one of the most extreme consequences of cognitive impairment. We find some evidence of avoidance behavior in buying allergy products but limited evidence in curtailing outdoor activity, implying that the cognitive risk of pollen exposure is discounted. Our results suggest that policymakers may wish to consider programs to raise public awareness of the risk and promote behavioral change.

Hitoshi Shigeoka received a B.A. (2001) and an MA (2003) in chemical engineering from University of Tokyo, and master of international affairs (2006) and PhD in economics (2012) from Columbia University. In addition to his position as Professor at the University of Tokyo, Shigeoka is an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University, a Research Associate with the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a Research Fellow of IZA. A well-recognized expert in health economics as well as labor, public, and behavioral economics, he has published in many top journals and serves on the Board of Editors for the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy as well as Associate Editor for the Journal of Health Economics and the Japanese Economic Review. His recent research spans topics ranging from healthcare price elasticity and vaccine mandates to peer effects in education, AI and productivity, and CEO gender bias.

This is part of Global Research Workshop series: Developing an Interdisciplinary Research Platform Toward ‘Next Asia’ co-sponsored by Stanford Global Studies.

This study critically examines the discourse of racism “denial” across 16 countries in Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia, through analysis of state reports submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) over a 45-year span. Using critical discourse analysis, this study identifies and classifies patterns of denial—literal, interpretive, and ideological—with inductively developed subcategories. The significance of this work lies in its exploration of denial as more than a rhetorical tool for deflecting accusations; rather, denial functions as a deeply embedded mechanism within state discourses, shaped by social, political, and religious values, as well as by struggles for national liberation, unity, and security. By unpacking these layers in historically and comparatively informed ways, this research reveals how various forms of denial hinder public engagement and intellectual acknowledgment of racism, providing valuable insights that support frameworks for anti-racist policies and advocacy efforts.

Presenter:

Junki Nakahara is a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, housed within the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Her research interests include nationalism, critical and cultural studies, feminist media studies, and postcolonial and decolonial international relations. She studies the contemporary dominance and institutionalization of nationalism, entangled with racism, xenophobia, historical revisionism (e.g., denial of wartime atrocities), and misogyny, primarily focusing on East Asia. Nakahara earned her PhD in Communication (2023) and MA in Intercultural and International Communication (2019), both from American University. Her publications include contributions to New Media & Society, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, and Discourse Approaches to an Emerging Age of Populism (edited by I. Íñigo-Mora & Lastres-López).

Discussants:

Vasuki Nesiah teaches human rights, legal and social theory at NYU Gallatin school where she is also faculty director of the Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights. She has published on the history and politics of human rights, humanitarianism, international criminal law, reparations, global feminisms, and decolonization. A founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), she is co-editing TWAIL: A Handbook. She has ongoing book projects including International Conflict Feminism (forthcoming, University of Pennsylvania Press) and Reading the Ruins: Colonialism, Slavery, and International Law. She has taught globally through Harvard Law School’s Institute for Global Law and Policy and previously worked as a human rights lawyer at the International Center for Transitional Justice, where she founded the Gender Program.

Sharika Thiranagama’s research examines the intersections of political mobilization and domestic life in contexts marked by violence, inequality, and intense political engagement. Her work is grounded in Sri Lanka and Kerala, South India, focusing on themes of war, displacement, family, caste, and gender. Her book, In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka, explores the impact of civil war on Sri Lankan Tamil and Muslim minorities, addressing themes of intergenerational relations, militarization, and post-war life. In Kerala, her research centers on Dalit agricultural laborers and the lasting legacies of caste and enslavement, discussing household economies, caste, and neighborhood dynamics. Her upcoming work will revisit inheritance and caste in post-war Sri Lanka, focusing on Tamil and Muslim communities in Jaffna.

The Asia-Pacific is witnessing a rapid reconfiguration of alliances, with profound implications for China-U.S. relations and regional security and stability.

On one side, the U.S. has been strengthening its hub-and-spoke alliance system in this region while creating new alliances like AUKUS. On another side, Russia and the DPRK have fundamentally improved their security cooperation during the Russia-Ukraine War. All this while China is caught between its deep worry about what it perceives as an Asia-Pacific version of NATO and its reluctant entanglement in the Russia-DPRK Pact.

How is China navigating this complex and evolving landscape?

The China Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein APARC welcomes Prof Yu Tiejun to cover these new developments and analyze the perils of alliance dilemma in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yu Tiejun is APARC's China Policy Fellow for the 2024 fall quarter. He currently serves as President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) and Professor at the School of International Studies (SIS), all at Peking University (PKU). Previously, he studied at the University of Tokyo in 1998-2000. He served as visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in 2005, and also as visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University in 2005/6.

Taiwan studies have established themselves as a standalone field of scholarship. In recent decades, new initiatives and study centers on Taiwan have emerged across the United States. At Stanford University, the newly established Taiwan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center serves as an interdisciplinary research and education hub on contemporary Taiwan. As the program aims to drive dialogue on Taiwan’s long-term development and future, how can we further facilitate and advance Taiwan scholarship in this new era? How can we collectively build networks and foster scholarly engagement transnationally? What challenges do we face, and what are some possible solutions and prospective directions? In this closing panel of our Taiwan Program's fall 2024 colloquium series, we are pleased to invite three scholars to share their approaches to promoting and conducting Taiwan studies in diverse academic settings, focusing on three main themes:

1. Mapping and Identity Building: Gain insights into the structures of Taiwan study centers in the U.S. and explore how they adapt to local environments, position their institutions, and foster scholarly connections.
2. Networking and Collaboration: Learn about the common challenges and strategies for launching and sustaining Taiwan studies programs.

3. Scholarly and Policy Contributions: Explore strategies for publishing, collaborating, and making Taiwan visible within U.S. academia.

    

The event will begin with the panelists, each delivering a 15-minute presentation on promoting transnational engagement between Taiwan and the United States. This will be followed by a moderated discussion among the panelists, highlighting the similarities and differences encountered by each center and reflections of exploring how they addressed challenges in unique ways. The event will conclude with an open Q&A session for the audience.

Speakers:

Bill Lavely is a social demographer who has written on Chinese fertility, marriage, mortality, sex ratios, and historical demography.  He did graduate work at UC-Berkeley and the University of Michigan, and has done field work in Taiwan, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Hainan.

Wei-hsin Yu is a sociologist and social demographer specializing in the areas of social stratification and gender inequality. Her research focuses on how macrolevel forces influence individuals, paying special attention to their labor market outcomes, family behaviors, and health and wellbeing. She has published two books and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, including American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Demography. Her current projects address questions including how work conditions and demographic changes contribute to wage disparities; how family dynamics shape youth development; and how immigrants’ health and wellbeing evolve in the United States. She is also conducting multiple projects in East Asia (Japan, Taiwan, China), centering on the themes of marriage and relationship formation and educational inequality, respectively.

Howard Chiang is the author of two award-winning monographs: After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018) and Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific (Columbia University Press, 2021). He has edited such collections as The Global Encyclopedia of LGBTQ History (Gale, 2019), The Making of the Human Sciences in China: Historical and Conceptual Foundations (Brill, 2019), Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader (Cambria, 2021), and Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines: A Reader (with Shu-mei Shih; Columbia University Press, 2024). He is currently completing two books: Trans Without Borders: Decolonial Histories and Mind Hunters: Psychoanalysis, Race, and the Politics of Transcultural Science in the Sinophone Pacific. He edits the “Critical Perspectives on Taiwan” series with Columbia University Press.

Moderator:

Gi-Wook Shin is William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in sociology and director of Shorenstein APARC and its Taiwan Program.

Co-sponsored by Peking University's Institute for Global Health and Development and the Asia Health Policy Program

This event explores the vital intersection of digital innovation and field experience in planetary health, focusing on Asia's unique position in global environmental and health challenges. It brings together two complementary perspectives to examine the measurement and improvement of planetary health outcomes. The first presentation introduces the Planetary Health Axis System (PHAS), an innovative digital platform that systematically evaluates human, animal, and ecological health against planetary boundaries across regions. With a focus on Asian countries, this system offers new insights into how different regions perform against key planetary health metrics. The second presentation shares significant research from the Stanford Center for Human and Planetary Health, particularly focusing on human and environmental health studies in Bangladesh and other Asian regions, while also offering valuable perspectives on digital planetary health assessment approaches. Through these discussions, the event aims to bridge the gap between data-driven approaches and field research, exploring how Asia's planetary health challenges and solutions contribute to the global landscape.

Dr. Ermo Chen holds a PhD in Statistics from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University. His research areas include health economics, planetary health, actuarial science, and financial statistics. Previously, he served as the Head of Risk Management and Chief Data Scientist at Aden Tech., and as an Actuarial Manager at China Reinsurance (Group) Corporation. His research primarily employs high-dimensional statistics and machine learning to extract deep attributes from big data, supporting optimal economic decision-making that considers risk in dynamic environments. He was awarded the 2019 China Health Insurance Innovation Award, and also the actuary for China's first weather-health index insurance product.

Dr. Stephen Luby studied philosophy and earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Creighton University. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester-Strong Memorial Hospital. He studied epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Luby's previous positions include directing the Centre for Communicable Diseases at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 2004 - 2012, conducting research and teaching epidemiology at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan from 1993 - 1998, and working as an epidemiologist in the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The November 2024 U.S. presidential election is projected to have profound implications for the world. In the Asia-Pacific region, the outcomes and subsequent policy priorities could significantly change global alliances and the region’s geopolitical and economic landscape. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump offer substantially different approaches to bilateral and multilateral cooperation that would have divergent impacts on trade relations, security partnerships, and diplomatic ties with Washington at a time in which U.S.-Asia engagement remains crucial for regional security, economic development, humanitarian assistance, technological innovation, and climate action.

Join a panel of experts on democracy, international relations, human rights, trade, and development to explore the potential opportunities and risks the next U.S. administration’s policies may pose for the Asia-Pacific and how stakeholders in the region look at their future with the United States. 

This event is part of APARC's Contemporary Asia Seminar Series, which hosts professionals in public and foreign policy, journalism, and academia who share their perspectives on pressing issues facing Asia today.

Panelists:

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, was published in 2018. His latest book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, was published in May 2022. 

Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation and of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

Gita Wirjawan is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and formerly a visiting scholar at APARC. His public service has included positions as Indonesia’s minister of trade, chairman of its Investment Coordinating Board, and chair of a 159-nation WTO ministerial conference in 2012 that focused on easing global trade barriers.

As an investment banker, he has held key appointments at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, where he led many mergers, corporate restructuring, corporate financing, and strategic sales involving leading companies in Southeast Asia. Having established a successful investment business in Indonesia, the Ancora Group, he created the Ancora Foundation, which has endowed scholarships for Indonesians to attend high-ranked universities worldwide and has funded the training of teachers at hundreds of Indonesian kindergartens serving underprivileged children.

Gita hosts the educational podcast “Endgame” to promote Southeast Asia’s growth and prosperity. His degrees are from the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA), Baylor University (MBA), and the University of Texas at Austin (BSc). 

Moderator:

Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, a professor of sociology, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. At Stanford, he has also served as director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center since 2005 and as founding director of the Korea Program since 2001. His research concentrates on nationalism, development, and international relations, focusing on Korea/Asia.

Shin is the author/editor of more than 25 books, including South Korea’s Democracy in Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization; The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security; Global Talent: Foreign Labor as Social Capital in Korea; and One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India, will be published by Stanford University Press in 2025.

In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, environmental, and political challenges in Asia through interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. He also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC in May 2024.

Shin previously taught at the University of Iowa and the University of California, Los Angeles. He holds a BA from Yonsei University and an MA and PhD from the University of Washington.

This is part of Global Research Workshop series: Developing an Interdisciplinary Research Platform Toward ‘Next Asia’ co-sponsored by Stanford Global Studies.

Drawing on alliance and identity politics literature, this study shows that as the U.S-China rivalry intensifies, citizens of U.S. allies--but not those in non-allies--are more likely to view China with increasingly unfavorable attitudes. This is because the growing bilateral tensions can amplify public perception that their national security and values shared with their allies are threatened by China. Moreover, because the U.S alliance relationships can be reinforced as a perceptual foundation of shared identity during times of geopolitical crisis, public views toward China and the U.S. tend to be conversely related as the competition grows. The study tests our propositions in the Asia-Pacific region, where the U.S. has several allies and its tensions with China are most acute, using two datasets--Gallup World Poll (2006-2022) and Asian Barometer Survey (Wave 3-5). Based on empirical findings, this study offers theoretical implications for research on foreign public opinion as well as policy suggestions for the U.S., its allies, and China.

Presenter:

Gidong Kim is 2023-2025 Korea Program Postdoctoral Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Missouri, an M.A. and a B.A. in Political Science from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He studies comparative political behavior and economy in East Asia, with particular focus on nationalism and identity politics, inequality and redistribution, and migration in South Korea and East Asia. His work is published or forthcoming in journals including Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Asian Perspective, Korea Observer, and Social Science Quarterly. 

Discussant:

Yusaku Horiuchi is a Professor of Government and Mitsui Professor of Japanese Studies at Dartmouth College. His research utilizes experimental designs and statistical methods to address diverse empirical questions in political science, particularly focusing on foreign/global public opinion, Japanese Politics, diversity, elections, and political methodology. He has published widely in top journals, including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, and Science Advances, and authored two books. His research draws on data from Japan and other countries such as Australia, Israel, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He holds an M.A. in international and development economics from Yale University and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT.

Paul Chang is Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Association Senior Fellow at Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Before joining Stanford, Chang was an associate professor of sociology at Harvard University. A sociologist by training, Chang's research on South Korean society has appeared in flagship disciplinary and area studies journals. He is the author of Protest Dialectics: State Repression and South Korea's Democracy Movement, 1970-1979 (Stanford University Press) and co-editor of South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (Routledge). His current work examines the diversification of family structures in South Korea.