Established by Kodansha Publishers in 1995 and named in honor of Edwin O. Reischauer, the Noma-Reischauer Prizes in Japanese Studies are given annually to the best essays on Japan-related topics written by a Harvard undergraduate and graduate student. The 2022 Noma-Reischauer Prizes will be presented on December 5, 2022 at the annual ceremony and reception held at 5 Bryant Street, the location for the Japanese language program.

This year’s graduate student prize was awarded to Mayako Shibagaki Liu for her paper, “Envisioning and Enacting Imperial Integration: Colonial Tourism in ‘Northern Korea’ 1931-1945.” Mayako is currently a G2 student in the Regional Studies - East Asia (RSEA) Program specializing in the modern history of Japan and Korea, with a main focus on culture, representation, and identity in the colonial period.

The undergraduate student prize was awarded to Kento Yamada for his paper, “Meaningful Contact with Immigrants and Support for Immigration: Evidence from Japan.” Kento is currently a junior in the Department of Government, interested in quantitative research methods, focusing on the data science track. His prizewinning paper was submitted for the Gov 97 Spring Tutorial: Social Influences on Political Behavior.