Current position and employer: Consultant, the World Bank

Hometown: Tokyo, Japan

Current City: Washington, DC

Why did you choose McCourt? Among many programs worldwide, the MIDP stood out to me with its unique program design: 1) A well-structured curriculum with a mandatory summer internship designed to nurture practitioners in the development field, 2) The strong focus on quantitative analysis, which enables to generate/implement/evaluate evidence-based approaches, and 3) the small cohort size, which allows you to build a tight-knit community within the program. Now I am confident that I made the right decision.

What professional/ work experience did you have prior to coming to McCourt? Prior to Georgetown, I worked as a development consultant in Kenya for the last 3 years. There I led several agricultural projects whose aim was to help local farmers to increase their income. I also worked as a journalist in Japan beforehand.

I am a person who is naturally inclined toward craves to identifying and analyzing social problems, strategizing about evidence-based solutions with evidence, and fostering a sense of stakeholder ownership and shared commitment to impactful solutions. This value system is reflected in my career development.

What has been the best part of your experience so far? Being a member of the tight-knit community at McCourt school and meeting amazing people have been full of joy and the best of my school life. The positivity of my cohorts, school staff, and faculties have always inspired me a lot.

What internships have you had so far during your time at McCourt? World Bank Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Analytics team: I supported the development and maintenance of DIME's Stata Visual Library and also conducted reproducibility checks on the DIME staff code. The experience at DIME allowed me to learn the best practice in quantitative analysis and obtain hard-core STATA coding skills. The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie): I assisted the team in designing the Impact Evaluation to assess the Universal Health Care reform in the Philippines. I did literature reviews and data analysis on the health system of the country and policy interventions of the Government of the Philippines (GOP) to help the team in communications with the counterparts of the GOP. Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation (gui2de): As an RA, I assisted my supervisor, Professor Zeitlin, in survey design, data cleaning, analysis, and writeup of project results of ongoing randomized, controlled trial Projects in Kenya and Rwanda.

Student organization involvement while at McCourt:

- AfriKa: African Policy Student Association at Georgetown University(President)
- Policy Innovation Lab (Safe Passage / Affordable Housing)
- McCourt Policy in Practice (Coms and PR)
- McCourt Student Association (Director of the Alumni network and Out reach)

Undergraduate University, degree, and major: The University of Tokyo, Bachelor of Arts, Social Science Studies, Social and International Relation

Hobbies/ Interests:

<Specific Policy Interests>
International Development
Social Protection
Social Finance / Impact investment
Africa and MENA
Data analysis in the development context

<Hobbies>
Photography / Music / Sports