Faculty – Active English at Komaba

Faculty and Staff

Teaching Faculty

Tito Akindele

Tito was born in London but grew up in Nigeria, where he had his elementary and secondary school education. He obtained a BSc in chemistry and an MSc in cancer cell and molecular biology from the University of Leicester. His undergraduate education involved a study-abroad year at the State University of New York at Buffalo. After PhD studies at Imperial College London and the University of Leeds, he worked at Kyoto University, Pfizer (Sandwich), RIKEN (Wako) and the University of Tsukuba.

His research interests focus on the development of small-molecule modulators and probes of the protein-protein interactions involved in oncogenic, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.

Professor Akindele can be contacted at: titoakindele at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp(adding @ where appropriate)

Naomi Berman

I am a youth sociologist researching a variety of contexts. More recently my work has been focused on informal learning spaces in higher education. My research as a youth sociologist has also allowed me to work on a wide range of topics involving young people, including: civic participation; technology and wellbeing; and, discourses of social entrepreneurship and change-making. At university, I teach courses on academic writing, sociology and social science topics, including quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation methodologies in youth. I received my Ph.D. in 2009 from The University of Sydney, Australia.

Prior to joining The University of Tokyo, I was involved in government and private industry-funded research projects investigating topics such as cyber-bullying in schools, student leadership, peer-to-peer learning for sustainability, and media literacy for The Foundation for Young Australians (Melbourne, Australia). I worked as a Social and Field Research Manager at the BBC (London, UK), and a Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne (Australia), and have been Associate Editor of the UNESCO Observatory Multi-Disciplinary Research in the Arts e-Journal since its inception in 2007.

Here are the links to my website and Google Scholar profile. You can also find me on Academia and ResearchGate.

Professor Berman can be contacted at:
bermancgcs at gmail.com (adding @ where appropriate)

Francesco Cangemi

After studying Humanities in Naples (Italy) and Linguistics in Zurich (Switzerland), I completed my PhD in Speech sciences in Aix-en-Provence (France) in 2012, and then moved to Cologne (Germany) to work as a post-doctoral researcher until 2023. My research has focused on prosody and intonation, which are an important but less understood aspect of the sound of languages. I currently work on the dynamics of spoken communication, with an emphasis on the different roles that speakers take during conversation.

Professor Cangemi can be contacted at: cangemi at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Greg Dalziel

Greg Dalziel holds a Ph.D. from Keio University where his work focused on measuring social identities across time and at scale using text analysis. Subtantively, his work spans studies in political and social cognition, culture, identity, nationalism, and politics. Methodologically, his work uses large-scale text collections and computational tools, with an emphasis on automated textual analysis. Previously, he worked for a number of years as a researcher at a think tank in Singapore, where he focused on security policy issues.

Professor Dalziel can be contacted at: gdalziel atg.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Erika D'Souza

Erika D’Souza holds a Ph.D. in English Renaissance Literature and the History of Art from the University of Arizona and joined the program as an ALESA instructor in 2022. She completed a M.A. in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and a B.A. in English and American Literature from the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Her research interests include gender studies, representations of masculinity, Shakespeare and adaptation studies, and recently, transgender characterisation in Early Modern drama.

Professor D'Souza can be contacted at: edsouza at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Sylwia Ejmont

Sylwia Ejmont obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also holds an M.A. in English medieval studies from Loyola University Chicago and a B.A. in English and French literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has lived and taught in Poland, Turkey, Hong Kong, and the U.S. before joining the ALESS/ALESA Program in 2023. Her interests include poetry and performance, translation and media studies, and memory. With training in instructional design, she has worked on curriculum design projects. She's particularly interested in cognitive and experiential aspects of learning.

Professor Ejmont can be contacted at: sejmont at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Isaac Tyrone Ghampson

Isaac Tyrone Ghampson holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maine (USA) and a B.Sc. in Biochemical Engineering from Jacobs University Bremen (Germany). Before joining the ALESS program in April 2023, he was a Research Associate at the Universidad de Concepción, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, both in Chile, and the University of Tokyo, and a Specially Appointed Assistant Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University. His research interests involve the development of advanced heterogeneous catalysts for the sustainable and renewable production of fuels and chemicals.

Professor Ghampson can be contacted at: ighampson at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Candler Hallman

Candler Hallman is an anthropologist interested in the cultural and cognitive dimensions of conflict resolution. In the late 2000s, he worked in conflict mediation and as a researcher with victims of political violence in Northern Ireland. His research has resulted in papers on the cognitive-linguistic dimensions of identity alignment as well as the psychological and cultural aspects of hope in situations of prolonged political dispute. He has also researched in educational anthropology, focusing on the interactive and cognitive practices involved in teacher collaboration and student feedback. He teaches scientific/humanities writing in the ALESS/ALESA Program and anthropology courses in the PEAK Program at the University of Tokyo. Additionally, he is Research Associate at the Peace Research Institute, International Christian University, where he lectures in Peace Studies.

Professor Hallman can be contacted at: challman at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Natsuno Funada

Natsuno Funada obtained her D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in Education from the University of Oxford. She also holds an M.Sc. in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition from the University of Oxford and an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Winona State University. She has taught Japanese and English in the U.S. and Japan before joining the ALESS/ALESA Program in 2020.

She is a researcher of Global Englishes, focusing on English language learners across the world. She is interested in developing a research instrument to capture learners’ complex attitudes towards the global use of English and exploring effective global approaches to language teaching in the 21st century.

Professor Funada can be contacted at: nfunada at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Catherine Hansen

Catherine Hansen holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, an MA in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University, and a BA in English from Duke University. Her research and teaching interests center in European modernist, avant-garde, and experimental literature, in particular international Surrealist networks and exhibitions. She has recently presented her work on surrealist tactics of "programmatic misapplication of attention" at the São Paulo Biennial (November 2018), and has published on the Bucharest surrealist group Infra Noir and other midcentury and/or contemporary surrealist groups (most recently in The International Encyclopedia of Surrealism [Bloomsbury, 2019]). She is also interested in, and has written on, Proust, dreams, and the literary genre of historiographic metafiction. Before joining the ALESS/ALESA program in 2017, she lived in Beirut, Lebanon.

Professor Hansen can be contacted at: cchansen1 at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Tomoko Kamishima

I returned to my native country after 30 years’ absence to join the ALESS program from April 2019. After finishing my PhD at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Vermont (USA), I worked at the University of Glasgow, the University of Leicester, and the University of Liverpool (all UK). I am a trained electrophysiologist with particular interest in calcium channels, potassium channels and calcium homeostasis of vascular smooth muscle cells.

I would like to say to my students that, although writing scientific reports in English may seem daunting, being a native English speaker is not necessarily advantageous. If you have a logical mind and clear thinking, you will be able to communicate as well as anyone, and I am here to help you.

Professor Kamishima can be contacted at: tkamishima at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Stefanie Mack

Stefanie Mack received a PhD in Oceanography from Old Dominion University in 2017. She then went on to hold two successive postdoctoral fellowships: first at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), University of Washington, and then at the British Antarctic Survey. Her research during this time focused on interactions between ocean, ice, atmosphere, and ecosystems around the continental shelves of Antarctica. She primarily uses satellite data and numerical simulations run on high performance computing clusters. Following this, Dr Mack transitioned to a role as Research Programme Manager at the University of Cambridge, where she managed multiple research projects related to climate repair. She joined the ALESS program in 2023.

Professor Mack can be contacted at: mack at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

John Solomon Maninang

Food Science and Technology; Food Safety
Fruit Postharvest Physiology and Biochemistry
Allelopathy (plant-plant interactions)

My academic career began as a Food Technology undergraduate student of the University of the Philippines and continued as a graduate student of Food Science in the same university. I then joined the Philippine Ministry of Agriculture as a Research Specialist in charge of formulating internationally-harmonized standards on food safety. In 2007, I came to Japan as a Monbukagakusho scholar and joined the Pomology and Post-harvest Physiology Laboratory of the University of Tsukuba where I obtained my Ph.D. In a nutshell, my Ph.D. research provided the biochemical basis for the 250 year-old on the risky, or at times lethal, interaction of combined durian (fruit) and alcohol intake. I was then hired as post-doctoral scientist at the International Agro-Biological Resources Laboratory, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT). Here, I have characterized the role of UV-A on the biochemical mechanism behind the growth-inhibiting property of cyanimide, a natural plant compound, on other plants.

Basically, I am a food and postharvest scientist who is adept at scientific communication especially in the field of life and environmental sciences. Aside from the published papers I have authored, I have assisted researchers and graduate students publish scientific findings in internationally-refereed journals. I have coached professional researchers in science presentation, and taught speech communication to senior high school science students. Equipped with expertise and experience, my goal as a Project Assistant Professor is to introduce and guide science students of Tokyo University through the satisfying experience of scientific writing and presentation in the ALESS program. Professor Maninang can be contacted at: jmaninang at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Professor Maninang can be contacted at: jmaninang at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Christopher Nicklin

Christopher Nicklin holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Temple University, and joined the program in 2023. His research interests consist of second language vocabulary acquisition, quantitative research methodology, and psycholinguistics. He has published in numerous journals, including Language Learning, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, The Modern Language Journal, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, and Language Testing.

Professor Nicklin can be contacted at: cnicklin at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

John Pazdziora

John Patrick Pazdziora holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of St Andrews. He joined the ALESA program in 2019. He researches Scottish literature in the long nineteenth century, especially the interplay between literature and religion. His work has appeared in various journals, including Literature and Theology and Jeunesse. He is the author of Haunted Childhoods in George MacDonald (Brill, 2020). Current research includes a JSPS-funded project on how portrayals of disability in Victorian children’s literature function as a form of theological discourse.

Professor Pazdziora can be contacted at: jpazdziora at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

John Quayle

John Quayle holds a BSc in Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Newcastle and a PhD in Physiology from the University of Leicester, both in the UK. Prior to joining the ALESS/ALESA program in 2023 he was a senior lecturer in Physiology at the University of Liverpool, where he taught on the Physiology, Pharmacology and Anatomy programs and was course director of the BSc Biomedical Sciences program. He has research interests in ion channels, particularly in the cardiovascular system. Ion channels underlie the heartbeat and are a target of medications like anti-arrhythmic drugs and blood pressure lowering drugs.

Professor Quayle can be contacted at: jquayle at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Elisa Ruiz Tada

Elisa Ruiz Tada obtained her Ph.D. in Psychology at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. She holds a Masters in Cognitive Science and Languages from the University of Barcelona, and a Master of Science in Animal Biology from Leiden University, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Elisa joined the ALESS Program in April 2019.

Professor Ruiz Tada can be contacted at: eruiztada at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Dennis Stromback

Dennis Stromback received his PhD from the Department of Religion in 2019 at Temple University in Philadelphia. His past and current research interests include the Kyoto School philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Latin American philosophy, explored in the service of engaging decolonial thought, ethics, and the politics of modernity. Dennis has articles published in journals such as Philosophy East and West, International Journal of Asian Studies, European Journal of Japanese Philosophy, as well as chapters in books on the Kyoto School philosophy. He is the book editor for the Journal of Japanese Philosophy and an active member of the Japanese Philosophy Network at the University of Tokyo. Dennis has taught at Temple University in both the US and the Japan campus prior to joining the ALESA program.

Professor Stromback can be contacted at: dstromback at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Leonard Sprague

Len Sprague received his PhD in Chemistry from Brown University in 2021 for his computational research on 2D materials. While studying chemistry, Len was also a passionate instructor and Writing Consultant, and these interests led to a jump across the disciplinary gap, marked by a move from Rhode Island, USA to Tokyo, Japan. In Tokyo, Len worked at Hibiya High School as an assistant language teacher under the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) program for over two years, before joining the ALESS/ALESA Program in 2024.

Len can now be found sitting in the spaces between science, writing, and critical discourse. As a natural consequence, Len also investigates the impacts and ongoing nature of AI tools' implementation in various fields, such as education and research.

Professor Sprague can be contacted at: lsprague at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Aurora Tsai

Dr. Aurora Tsai is from the USA, growing up in Ohio and Maryland. She received her MA in Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and her PhD in Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. While pursuing various research projects, she has taught academic English at various places, including Japan, Hawaii, Qatar, and Pennsylvania (USA).

Her research currently focuses on the intersections of race, language, and identity, and its applications towards language education and policy. In her most recent project, she looks at how raciolingistic ideologies equating race and language influence the identity development of mixed race and mixed heritage individuals.

Professor Tsai can be contacted at: amtsai at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Alexandra Terashima

I completed my Ph.D. in Genetics at Harvard University and hold a B.S. in Biology from the University of New Hampshire. My graduate research focused on regulation of gene expression during early embryo development using zebrafish as a model organism. As a graduate student I was increasingly interested in scientific writing and science communication, in particular how to help scientists communicate about their research findings to the general public. After a brief postdoc at the Laboratory of Embryology at University of Tokyo, I worked at RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama as an in-house editor and science communicator where I had a chance to help scientists improve their writing as well as to promote the research of the institute to the global community. I joined the ALESS/ALESA Program in September 2015.

Professor Terashima can be contacted at: aterashima at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Eric Vanden Bussche

Eric Vanden Bussche obtained his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. He also holds an M.A. in Journalism from Columbia University, an M.A. in Modern and Contemporary Chinese History from Peking University, and a B.A. in History from the University of Sao Paulo. His current research, funded by a two-year JSPS (KAKEN) grant, examines the relationship between pluralistic legal practices, colonialism, and the formation of identities along China’s borderlands from the late nineteenth century until 1940. He has been with the ALESA Program since April 2019.

Professor Vanden Bussche can be contacted at: vandenbussche at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Ian Wash

Ian Wash holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Nottingham. He also has an MSc in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His academic work encompasses two distinct yet compatible disciplines: politics and applied linguistics. His interdisciplinary research explores the relationship between language and politics by using discourse analysis to understand and resolve policy dilemmas. He has extensive experience of teaching English for Academic Purposes, as well as Content and Language Integrated Learning courses that enable students to develop English proficiency through learning about global political issues. He joined the ALESS/ALESA Program in April 2022.

Professor Wash can be contacted at: ianwash at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Doris Zhang

Doris Zhang received her Master's Degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of Denver, before obtaining her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Alberta. Doris is a scientist-practitioner at heart - she believes that scientific research and applied practice mutually reinforces one another.

Doris' research interests include intercultural competence, multicultural identities and well-being, as well as intercultural relations. Outside of work, Doris enjoys travelling and exploring new cultures, foods, and cafes, as well as taking a stroll by the ocean.

Professor Zhang can be contacted at: dzhang at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate).

Administrative Staff

Satoko Urushibara is the CGCS office manager. She was born in Tottori prefecture, and has lived for a number of years in London and Seoul.

Hiromi Arai was born in Tokyo, and holds a bachelor’s degree in American Studies.

Tomoko is from Osaka and has lived in Los Angeles and Singapore. She holds a diploma in piano performance.

Hataguchi supports PC/IT at CGCS. He holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and has worked in American electronics companies.

Active English at Komaba

Faculty and Staff

Teaching Faculty

Tito Akindele

Naomi Berman

Alex Bueno Alex Bueno holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from Harvard University, and joined the program in 2017. Professor Bueno can be contacted at: alex.bueno at g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)

Francesco Cangemi

Greg Dalziel

Richard Dietz

Erika D'Souza

Sylwia Ejmont

Isaac Tyrone Ghampson

Candler Hallman

Natsuno Funada

Catherine Hansen

Incoronata (Nadia) Inserra

Tomoko Kamishima

Stefanie Mack

John Solomon Maninang

Kristopher McEown

Christopher Nicklin

John Pazdziora

Graham Peebles

Simon Perry

Raquel Moreno-Peñaranda

Jesús Pulido Arcas

John Quayle

Elisa Ruiz Tada

Manuel Senna

Dennis Stromback

Leonard Sprague

Aurora Tsai

Alexandra Terashima

Eric Vanden Bussche

Ian Wash

Doris Zhang

Administrative Staff

Satoko Urushibara

Hiromi Arai

Tomoko Okano

Toshiya Hataguchi

Alex Bueno
Alex Bueno holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from Harvard University, and joined the program in 2017.

Professor Bueno can be contacted at:
alex.bueno at　g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (adding @ where appropriate)