Twelve new faculty members have joined Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (effective April 2026)

The following 12 individuals have joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Business Administration and the various undergraduate schools at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, effective April 1, 2026.

Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School of Management (Business School)

Professor Atsushi Obayashi

After graduating from the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University, he worked at Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line). He subsequently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and served as a faculty member at Keio University Graduate School of Business, where he was later named Professor Emeritus. He became a visiting professor at this university in 2025 and assumed his current position in 2026. His areas of expertise include economics, risk management, and innovation. He is also a founding member of the Japan Society for Health Economics. In government research projects, he served as Chair of the Evaluation Committee for the second phase of the Strategic Innovation Promotion (SIP) program, “Strengthening National Resilience (Disaster Prevention and Mitigation),” and as Chair of the Peer Review Committee for the third phase, “Building a Smart Disaster Prevention Network.” He has served as a member or chair of government committees for a total of 60 fiscal years.

Degree: Ph.D. in Public Policy, The University of Chicago
Areas of Expertise: Economics, Risk Management, Innovation

Professor Shoko Kunihiro

She completed her doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Keio University, and holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration. She has held positions including Associate Professor at Shizuoka Prefectural University and Specially Appointed Associate Professor at Keio University, and currently holds her current position. She currently serves as a member of the Cabinet Office’s Council for the Promotion of Gender Equality and on various committees of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, while also serving as Director of Work Shift Research Institute, Inc.

Degree: Ph.D. (Business Administration), Keio University
Areas of Expertise: Organizational Management, Organizational Behavior, Design of Human Resource Development Programs

Professor Kazuo Tokai

He earned a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Tsukuba. He held various positions, including that of an auditor, at the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, where he was engaged in tax evasion investigations for many years. He has held his current position since 2026. He specializes in detecting fraudulent accounting and profit manipulation, and is engaged in developing detection models using statistical methods, machine learning, and deep learning. Furthermore, he is establishing methods for interpreting the reasons behind fraud by utilizing Explainable AI (XAI).

Degrees: Ph.D. (Business Administration), University of Tsukuba Graduate School
Areas of Expertise: Fraudulent Accounting, Profit Manipulation, Corporate Bankruptcy, Tax Law (Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion)

Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, School of Business Administration

Professor Kazuhisa Miwa

He completed his doctoral program in the Graduate School of Engineering (Department of Information Engineering) at Nagoya University and holds a Doctor of Engineering degree. After serving as a professor in the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at Nagoya University, he assumed his current position in 2026. He has served as President of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society and as a Board Member of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, and is a Fellow of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society. He studied under Professor Herbert A. Simon at the Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University. In the fields of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, he conducts basic and applied research on higher-order human cognitive processes (discovery, creativity, insight, and collaboration).

Degree: Doctor of Engineering, Nagoya University
Specialties: Cognitive Science, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence

Yugo Maeda, Full-Time Lecturer

He earned his Ph.D. in Human Sciences from the Graduate School of Letters at Hokkaido University. Prior to his current position, he served as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow (DC1) and a Contract Researcher at the Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute. His areas of expertise are social psychology and cultural psychology, and he conducts research on the cultural diversity of social behavior and emotions through cross-cultural studies.

Degree: Ph.D. (Human Sciences), Hokkaido University
Areas of Expertise: Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology

Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Faculty of Economics

Kenji Kawahara, Associate Professor

After earning a Bachelor of Laws and a Juris Doctor (Professional Degree) from the University of Tokyo, he obtained an LL.M. from Georgetown University and a Doctor of Laws from Kobe University. He specializes in antitrust and competition law. As an attorney at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, he handled a wide range of antitrust and competition law matters both in Japan and abroad. He also has experience working on issues related to the competitive environment following the liberalization of the electricity market through power system reform at the Secretariat of the Electricity and Gas Transactions Monitoring Committee of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), as well as experience working on matters related to the digital platform sector (operation and enforcement of the Digital Platform Transaction Transparency Act) at the Bureau of Commerce and Information Policy of METI.

Degree: Doctor of Law (Ph.D.), Kobe University
Areas of Expertise: Antitrust Law (Competition Law), Economic Law, Digital Platforms, Electricity Market Liberalization

Yuma Osaki, Full-Time Lecturer

After graduating from the School of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, he joined Marubeni Corporation and worked at its Economic Research Institute. He subsequently entered the graduate school at Doshisha University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science. Through a dual-degree program, he obtained an LL.M. from the University of Sheffield in the UK and a degree from the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. During this time, he served as a fellow in the Australian Parliamentary Fellowship Program, an Indo-Pacific Fellow at the U.S.-Asia Center in Perth, Australia, a part-time lecturer (at Meiji University and Nagoya University), and an assistant professor at Doshisha University.

Degree: Ph.D. (Political Science), Doshisha University
Specialization: International Relations, International Political Economy

Tomohiro Iwata, Full-Time Lecturer

He earned a Ph.D. in Physical Education Science from the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies at the University of Tsukuba. After serving as a part-time lecturer at Kyoto University of Advanced Science, he assumed his current position in 2026. His areas of expertise are exercise physiology and molecular muscle physiology, and his research focuses on “the mechanisms of skeletal muscle hypertrophy induced by resistance training” and “the role of autophagy in muscle adaptation and morphology.”

Degree: Ph.D. (Physical Education Science), University of Tsukuba
Specialization: Sports Science, Exercise Physiology, Molecular Muscle Physiology

Faculty of Commerce, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business

Professor Ikuo Takahashi

He completed his doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Keio University, and holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration. After serving as a professor in the Faculty of Business and Commerce at Keio University, he became a professor emeritus at the same university in 2023. Since April of that year, he has served as a professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at Aoyama Gakuin University. His areas of expertise are marketing theory and consumer behavior, with a primary focus on empirical research on brand strategy. In addition to his teaching and research, he has held key positions such as Standing Director of the Keio Gijuku Educational Foundation and Principal of Keio Gijuku Shiki High School. Currently, he serves as an outside director of Taiyo Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and as Chairman of the Japan Industrial Association (a public interest incorporated foundation), among other roles, actively bridging the gap between theory and practice in various fields.

Degree: Ph.D. (Graduate School of Business Administration), Keio University
Specialization: Marketing Theory, Consumer Behavior Theory

Youxin Feng, Full-Time Lecturer

Youxin Feng earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Tohoku University. He subsequently conducted research as a postdoctoral researcher at the same graduate school and has held his current position since April 2026. His research focuses on the international practices of social enterprises in East Asia, with a particular emphasis on China, Japan, and South Korea. Using primarily qualitative research methods, he addresses a wide range of themes, including the institutionalization of the social enterprise sector, ecosystems, intermediary support organizations, and sustainable management strategies. His current research focuses on community-based social enterprises, aiming to elucidate how these community-rooted organizations achieve sustainability through external support and internal strategic development.

Degree: Ph.D. (Business Administration), Tohoku University
Specialization: Social enterprises, international comparative studies, qualitative research

Yuchen Zhang, Full-Time Lecturer

She holds a Ph.D. in Sports Science from Waseda University and a Master’s degree in International Business Development from Sophia University. She also graduated from the Global BBA program at ESSEC Business School in France. Her research focuses on sports event marketing, with a particular emphasis on non-mega events, branding, and consumer behavior. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals such as the Journal of Product & Brand Management and the International Journal of Event and Festival Management. She also aims to contribute to the development of students’ analytical and managerial skills through case-method teaching that actively incorporates practical case studies.

Degrees: Ph.D. (Sports Science), Waseda University
Areas of Expertise: Sports Marketing, Brand Management, Consumer Behavior

Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, School of International Studies

Yuko Tanaka, Full-time Lecturer

After graduating from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University and completing her graduate studies at the Graduate School of Letters there, she earned a Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She served as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellow (PD) and has held her current position since 2026. Her specialization is Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, focusing on discourses surrounding heresy and orthodoxy during the formative period of Islam, as well as the demarcation of intellectual boundaries, using Arabic historical sources for analysis.

Degree: Ph.D., SOAS University of London
Specialization: Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Social History of Religion, Arabic Philology