Daiwa Scholars 2024
Daiwa Scholars by Waseda University
The Foundation is delighted to announce the five Daiwa Scholars 2024.
The Scholars have studied at the following institutions, some having studied at more than one:
Lancaster University, University College London, University of Bath, University of Brighton, University of Durham, University of Nottingham and University of Sheffield.
Announcing the new Daiwa Scholars, Jason James, Director General of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, said:
‘This year the Daiwa Foundation’s Trustees have chosen five new Daiwa Scholars. Given Japan’s great strengths in science, it is good to see three scientists in the group, ranging from biotechnology to geology and robotics. But as always, our Scholars offer a fascinating and wide range of expertise, with the other two being an architect and a historian. All five have an enormous enthusiasm for Japan and I am sure will have a thoroughly rewarding time on our programme. After that, it is a tremendous pleasure for all of us at the Daiwa Foundation to follow their progress, and where possible, support them, in their subsequent careers.’
Their profiles can be viewed via the link below:
Profiles with Photos of the DS 2024
About the scholars
Jasmine Cutler
Jasmine was awarded an MSci in Natural Sciences by Lancaster University in 2019. She completed a PhD in Biotechnology (Engineering) at the University of Nottingham in 2024. Her doctoral research investigated greener ways of recycling plastic using bacteria, and is based on seminal work carried out by researchers in Japan. Jasmine has visited Japan three times – once with her family and twice to travel and to visit a Japanese friend whom she met during her study abroad year in Sydney, Australia. Jasmine is keen to learn from Japan’s burgeoning biotechnology sector. She aspires to a career in biotechnology and to combat issues such as climate change and resource scarcity.
Zachary Fairbrother
Zachary completed a BA in History at the University of Sheffield in 2024. He has a long-standing passion for Japanese history and culture, and has taken modules on Japanese history while at Sheffield. His academic interests include urban history and Tokyo’s queer community. Zachary won a competitive Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scholarship to conduct six weeks of guided research in the summer of 2023 on Japanese far right politics across the postwar era. He produced a blog, The Afterlives of Japanese Fascism as part of this project. Following his time in Japan he aspires to further study and to a career in academia studying Japan.
Elizabeth-Jane Pallett
Elizabeth-Jane (Lizzie) was awarded a BSc in Environmental Sciences by the University of Brighton in 2023. Lizzie’s interest in Japanese language and culture was sparked by the karate classes she has attended since childhood. She has aspired towards a geological career in Japan since visiting for the first time in 2020, when she spent 5 weeks at a language school in Fukuoka, following which she started her degree and continued to teach herself Japanese. She is particularly interested in volcanoes and tectonics, and finds the Japanese landscape and language fascinating. Her ambitions lie in volcanic disaster management and in the application of geochemical theories to the mineralisation of CO2 into volcanic rocks – a developing technology that aims to assist in worldwide efforts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
Thibault Quinn
Thibault was awarded a BSc in Architecture by the University of Bath in 2021, and completed his Master’s in Architecture at The Bartlett, University College London in 2024. Thibault visited Japan in July 2017 on a family trip with his Japanese grandmother, who originated from Seto City, Aichi. This sparked an ambition to live and work in Japan in the future. Thibault has been influenced by the writings of Kengo Kuma, the works of Tadao Ando, the Metabolists and the export of Japanese architecture globally. Through immersion in the Japanese architecture industry, he wants to gain a sensibility for material lifecycles and for careful joinery in construction and integration of buildings in their context. He is particularly interested in understanding how and why public gathering spaces in Japan have a temporal and flexible quality defined by impermanence and events.
Lewis Smith
Lewis was awarded an MEng in Electronic Engineering by Durham University in 2020. Prior to commencing the Scholarship, he has been working as a software engineer. Since 2021, he has been volunteering as an ambassador of Japan at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, where he teaches botany and history to visitors of the Minka house. His first visit to Japan was in 2023, when he travelled to see the Minka at Shirakawa-go, cycled the Shimanami Kaido, and hiked a leg of the Shikoku 88 over his month-long trip. Lewis is interested in Japan’s world-class industrial robotics, including how this expertise can be applied to a broad range of fields. Health care, agriculture, and assistive robotics for the home are examples of beneficial robotics that he hopes to explore by leveraging the latest research in robot programmability. Alongside robotic design, he is keen to understand how the Japanese public embraces novel robotics. Lewis aspires to a career as an engineer in the field of robotics, and ultimately to establish his own company.