Japan

Kenta Fukao is a resident fellow in GMF's Indo-Pacific program. He also serves as an American Political Science Association–Sasakawa Peace Foundation Congressional Fellow (2024–2025).

Fukao has more than 10 years of experience working in the Japanese House of Representatives, most recently in the secretariat’s office. From 2020 to 2023, he served in the Japanese embassy in Washington, DC, organizing exchanges between the US and Japanese legislatures. He holds a master's degree in political science from the Graduate School of Law at Keio University.  

Yuki Tsujimura is a resident fellow in GMF's Indo-Pacific program. He also serves as an American Political Science Association–Sasakawa Peace Foundation Congressional Fellow (2024–2025) and is a PhD student at the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on the US Congress and its role in policy change, with a specific interest in representation and congressional procedure. 

Tsujimura earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Tokyo. His thesis, "The Effect of Issue Salience on Legislative Process", investigates Congress’ responsiveness to media attention in the current polarized era. He uses quantitative methods and text analysis to understand how political institutions influence politicians’ actions.

Sayuri Romei is a Washington, DC-based senior fellow in GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. She leads work on Japan and heads the Japan Trilateral Forum. Her research focuses on US-Japan relations and security issues in the Indo-Pacific.

Romei was previously an associate director of programs at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, where she was responsible for the Next Generation of US-Japan Nuclear Experts program and the Mansfield Forum on Energy and Climate Change, among other initiatives. She was also a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the RAND Corporation, a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center, the fellow for security and foreign affairs at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, and a MacArthur nuclear security fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Sayuri holds bachelor’s degrees in English language and literature from the University of Sorbonne, and in international relations from the University of Roma La Sapienza, and a master’s degree in international relations and a PhD in political science from Roma Tre University. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Kyodo News, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and The Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, among other media outlets. She has appeared on BBC World News, the BBC World Service, and the PBS NewsHour to comment on security issues in East Asia. She speaks Italian, French, and Japanese, and is studying Korean.