Gerald L. Curtis is Burgess Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Columbia University, Senior Research Scholar and Director of Columbia’s Japan Research Program, Chairman of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research. He served as Director of Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute for a total of twelve years. Read the full bio here.

Jacob M. Schlesinger is president and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation, an organization that gives grants and runs a fellowship program dedicated to bolstering relations between the two countries. He joined the USJF from The Wall Street Journal, where he worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and Detroit. Read the full bio here.