Welcome Visiting Scholar Masako Tanaka!

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Masako Tanaka, a visiting scholar from Sophia University in Tokyo, to CUNY SPH.

Dr. Tanaka is a development practitioner and a certified social worker engaged in various civil society activities both in Nepal and Japan for more than two decades. She obtained a Master of Arts in Gender Analysis in Development from University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and a Ph.D. in Development Studies from Nihon Fukushi University in Japan. As a Professor in the Faculty of Global Studies at Sophia University, she teaches South Asian Regional Studies, International Cooperation, and Gender and Development. Her main works focus on roles of different actors in development aid and citizen’s movements. Her current research areas include a case study of the evolutional process of a trafficking survivors’ organization in Nepal and migration studies, particularly on the role of migrants’ organizations during the integration process of migrants and the reproductive health of migrant women in Japan. 

While in New York City, Dr. Tanaka will be collecting data to understand Nepalese migrants’ access to contraception and abortion services in NYC, as part of a comparative study with Japan. She is collaborating with CUNY SPH faculty members Heidi Jones and Diana Romero through the CUNY SPH Center for Immigrant Refugee and Global Health. Dr. Tanaka will be with us through the end of August.

Reach out to say hello at: mtanaka@sophia.ac.jp