About Us

Naoko Takayanagi was born and raised in Tokyo. She received a B.A. in Modern Languages from McGill University and an M.A. in International Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She worked in corporate banking, asset management, and financial translation, and has extensive experience teaching Japanese.

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Christopher is a student at Boston University, where he majors in both Voice Performance and Japanese. He wishes to bridge his studies together to explore and spread Japanese music and culture throughout the world.

Marie Romano has cultivated a life-long interest in Japan. She double-majored in Philosophy and Japanese with minors in Asian Studies and Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. While she loves many aspects of Japanese culture, she is particularly interested in Japanese tea and was even on a TV show to learn all about tea production in Japan in 2018. Since then, she has traveled to Japan many times to further her knowledge of tea harvesting and processing, including working on a tea farm for three months. Having recently moved to Boston from Austin, Texas, she is excited to make new connections with the community and share a cup of tea.

Remy Kaldawy was born in New York and grew up in the greater Boston area. He is currently a student at Columbia University, where he studies mathematics. He has a passion for Japanese literature, which he has been cultivating since stumbling upon Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes. His favorite Japanese author is Yukio Mishima, the majority of whose works he is proud to have read. When he’s not puzzling over math, you can find him reading literature of all types, struggling to squeeze a half hour of exercise into his day, and scouring the mean city streets for a decent café.

Julia Napier has a BA in East Asian Studies and a minor in Art History. She has spent three years in Japan and loves learning about Japanese pop culture, traditional culture, literature, film, and food.

Ian was born and raised in Bristol, Rhode Island. He has been interested in Japanese history and culture from an early age after wearing out old VHS tapes of Godzilla films. Ian graduated from Roger Williams University with a degree in History, East Asian Studies, and Film, Animation, & Video. He lived and worked in Noto, Ishikawa through the JET Program and is now back home working to bridge US and Japanese cultures. 

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Danielle Cochran has studied the Japanese language for almost 20 years. She has a BA in East Asian Studies and minor in Japanese Language from UMass Boston. The first time she lived in Japan was to study at Intercultural Institute of Japan and the second was for an internship at the Sakae Institute of Study Abroad. Her interests include gaming and horror movies!

Joanne Ha was born in South Korea, and was raised in a multilingual and multigenerational household in Maryland. She graduated from Boston University with a BS in Film and Television, a BA in Religion, and a minor in Japanese language. Outside of JSB, she works as a freelance videographer and her current hobbies include tennis, nail design, and crochet!

Bowen Wang was born in Dalian, China. He is currently an undergraduate student of Connecticut College majoring in East Asian Studies. He is a big fan of Japanese animation and history. In the fall of 2023, Bowen will be studying abroad in Kyoto at Doshisha University.

Noah Coltani was born in Seattle and attended public schools in Tokyo throughout his childhood summers. His family lives in Setagaya-ku, and he enjoys visiting them every summer and winter. He graduated from Boston University and is currently attending Boston University School of Law. He hopes to one day practice law in both Boston and Tokyo.