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WASHINGTON, DC – March 31, 2025 - The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today announced Dr. Kristi Govella has been named senior adviser and Japan Chair. Dr. Govella brings to CSIS extensive expertise on the intersection of economics, security, and governance, with a particular focus on Japan and the Indo-Pacific region.
“I am delighted that Dr. Govella is joining our department to further the Japan Chair’s reputation as the leading platform for cutting-edge research and analysis on Japan’s strategic trajectory and the U.S.-Japan alliance in a regional and global context. She brings a wide range of topical expertise that will also support our efforts to examine the geopolitical trends that will shape the future of global governance and institutions,” said Dr. Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at CSIS.
As the incoming senior adviser and Japan Chair, Dr. Govella will be focused on topics such as military alliances, economic security, critical and emerging technologies, regional institutional architecture, and governance of the maritime, outer space, and cyber domains.
Dr. Govella will serve concurrently as associate professor of Japanese politics and international relations in the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford. Prior to joining Oxford, Dr. Govella was the inaugural director of the congressionally funded Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, where she was also assistant professor of Asian studies from 2018 to 2024. From 2021 to 2022, she was senior fellow and deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where she led the Japan and Korea portfolios. From 2017 to 2018, she conducted research as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations.
From 2016 to 2017, Dr. Govella was associate professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense institute. In this role, she taught security-related courses for military and civilian representatives of the United States and Indo-Pacific countries and briefed U.S. government officials on regional issues. She has also been a visiting research fellow at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University and an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center and Pacific Forum.
Dr. Govella is a widely published author and commentator in major outlets, including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Japan Times, Mainichi Shimbun, CNN, and NBC News. She is co-editor of the journal Asia Policy. She is currently writing a book on the influence of multinational firms on policymaking in Japan and has published on a variety of topics ranging from U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation to the evolution of the Quad to Japanese economic statecraft and defense policy.
Dr. Govella holds a PhD and an MA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in political science and Japanese from the University of Washington, Seattle. She lived in Japan for five years and speaks Japanese.
CSIS President and CEO Dr. John Hamre said, “We are excited to welcome Dr. Govella to be the next holder of the CSIS Japan Chair. Her policy-facing scholarship on economic security, defense policy, and multilateral governance as it relates to Japan and the Indo-Pacific is critical given the challenges and opportunities faced by the U.S.-Japan alliance today.”
“I am honored to join CSIS as the Japan Chair,” said Govella. “I look forward to building on the program’s important legacy of strengthening U.S.-Japan relations, as well as examining ways that the United States and Japan can work together with other regional and global partners to pursue shared goals.”
For media inquiries, please contact Sam Cestari at scestari@csis.org.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges.