Fumiko Sasaki

Focus areas: International relations theory, Geopolitics in Indo-Pacific, U.S.-China relationship, China’s space capabilities, Space capabilities and their impact on geopolitics, Japanese politics, political thought, and its political culture, Politics and sustainable environment. 

Fumiko Sasaki is a specialist in geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific, international relations theory, China’s space activities, and Japanese politics. At SIPA, she teaches International Relations Theory for Global Policy Making for its Executive Program and is an advisor for the capstone program in both EPD and EMPA. She also teaches East Asian Security for SIPA during the summer session. At Columbia University, she taught Politics, Society, and Sustainable Environment at the Earth Institute Executive Education Program, and has been a field supervisor at the School of Social Work. She has taught East Asian Security, Principles of International Politics, and Principles of International Political Economy at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, and is a fellow at the Reischauer Center East Asian Studies at SAIS. Previously, she was a visiting scholar at The New School. 

Her current research focuses on how China has been developing space capabilities and how they have impacted the great power competition between China and the U.S. In two years of research, she published the findings in numerous outlets, including a book, as a special report by the U.S. Air University, which hosts the executive education for the U.S. Space Force, and a podcast at the Reischauer center. Before this topic, she conducted a quantitative and comparative study of whether/how Internet use enhances political participation. She authored two journal publications in 2016 as part of this study. (See publication section below)

Dr. Sasaki is passionate about and actively involved in serving underprivileged children, which led her to work as the director of the Community E-Learning Initiative at Distance Education for Africa, where she also taught various courses as a volunteer professor. She has started a project to support such children in Indonesia in collaboration with the School of Social Work at Columbia University. She is also engaged in empowering Japanese women, as the executive director at the Japan Institute for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (JSIE), where she organizes various conferences and forums that strengthen women’s social participation and entrepreneurship.

Education

• PhD, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies
• MA, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies
• MA, Aoyama Gakuin University
• BA, Aoyama Gakuin University

Honors and Awards

• St. Edward’s University Presidential Grant
• Sasakawa Scientific Grant