Daiwa Scholars in Japanese Studies 2019

Helen Magowan

Helen Magowan graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA (Scot) in Japanese in 1997. She spent her year abroad at Seikei University in Tokyo. She is currently completing a Masters in Japanese Studies at SOAS, University of London. After graduating from Edinburgh, Helen worked for a number of different Japanese companies and managed her own business. She decided to pursue a Masters after taking a course in the arts of East Asia at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Helen finished her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2024. Her research focussed on pre-modern women’s writing, at the intersection between the act of writing, and what they wrote, exploring ideas of femininity.

You can see Helen talking about her current research in  this video (from 7 minutes 50 seconds).

Early in 2024 Helen undertook a 3-month internship at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which materialised into a display in the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Shiba Gallery: Women in Japanese Prints, 20 August to 8 December 2024.

Callum Sarracino

Callum Sarracino graduated with an MA (Scot) in Japanese Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 2019. He spent a year at Nanzan University, Nagoya, during his degree. Callum began an MAS (Masters of Arts and Sciences) in Information, Technology and Society in Asia at Tokyo University in September 2019, completing it in September 2021. His interest area is Japanese popular media, in particular anime and manga, which inspired his undergraduate dissertation. During his Masters, he built on his research, focusing on ‘Omegaverse’ manga, a type of Boys’ Love manga, and explore how the manga enables its mainly female fan base to relate to and mediate gender dynamics in society.

In October 2021 he began a PhD at the School of East Asian Studies at Sheffield University. It is a dual degree with the University of Tōhoku in Sendai.

Alexander Thacker

Alexander Thacker graduated in June 2019 with a BA in Japanese Studies and History from the University of Sheffield. As part of his degree, he spent a year studying at the University of Kyoto. In September 2019, he began an MA in the Global and Japanese Perspectives Programme at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, during which he explored the relationship between environmentally beneficial government policies and the pursuit of economic growth. He set out to analyse Japanese international structural investment, especially within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and to explore how Japan’s involvement in ASEAN in general can be measured. Alex completed his MA in March 2022.

In the future, Alexander aspires to work either for a think tank or in a policy or research role. You can see Alex’s blog on mountains here: https://alexsmountainsblog.wordpress.com 

Having worked as a Fellow at Awaji Youth Federation in Himeji Prefecture following his MA, in March 2023 he took up a post as Deal Advisory for KPMG Japan in their Tokyo Office. In August 2024 he was promoted Senior Tax Associate at KPMG Japan Tax Corporation.

Eleanor Wyllie

Eleanor Wyllie graduated with a BA in Japanese from the University of Oxford in 2013. During her year abroad she studied at Osaka University. After  graduating, Eleanor  worked in Japan as a Coordinator for International Relations on the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme in Niseko, Hokkaido, and as a Public Relations Officer at Kobe University. Eleanor began an MSc in Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford in October 2019, completing it in summer 2020. As part of her MSc she focussed on the work of the author Mitsuyo Kakuta, exploring Kakuta’s depiction of the family unit and positioning her work alongside her contemporaries and in the sociocultural context of modern-day Japan.

Since completing her MSc, Eleanor has been working for the Japan National Tourism Organisation in London.

In May 2022 she took up a Research Assistant position at the University of Oxford, before moving to the USA during the summer.

Since early 2023 she has been working as Communications Specialist in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.