SDGs Symposium 2025 - Tackling Inequalities for Sustainability and Wellbeing

Kensuke Fukushi is Professor and Director at the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), The University of Tokyo. Prior to joining the University of Tokyo as an Associate Professor in 2001, he held academic positions at the Asian Institute of Technology (Associate and Assistant Professor) and Tohoku University (Assistant Professor). His research interests are on environmental engineering, risk assessment, climate change, water resources, biological technology, and membrane technology. He holds a PhD on Civil Engineering from the University of Utah.

Antoine Bocquet is Vice President Institutional Sales, Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania for Springer Nature, based in Tokyo, and has nearly 30 years’ experience in the academic publishing industry in the Asia-Pacific. He also holds the position of Managing Director of the Springer Nature companies in Japan. He is responsible for all Institutional sales in the regions of Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania, and during his career has led publishing programs in Asia, founded a medical communications business in Japan and been a book commissioning editor. An Australian by birth, Tony holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (Physics) and is a graduate of Griffith University in Brisbane. He has lived permanently in Japan since 1994.

Sawako Shirahase is Project Professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the University of Tokyo. She also serves Senior Vice President of the United Nations University and the International Science Council. Dr Shirahase received her D.Phil. in sociology from the University of Oxford, conducted post-doctoral research at the East Asian Institute, Columbia University as a junior researcher, and held positions of Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, and Associate Professor of Sociology at Tsukuba University, and Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include comparative social stratification and demographic transformation, gender and generational relations, family change and social security system. She is the author of “Social Inequality in Japan” (2014), “Demographic Change and Inequality in Japan (ed.)” (2011), and “Social Stratification in an Aging Society with Low Fertility: The Case of Japan (ed.)” (2022).

Magdalena Skipper is Editor in Chief of Nature and Chief Editorial Advisor for the Nature Portfolio. She has considerable editorial and publishing experience, having worked as Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, Senior Editor for genetics and genomics at Nature and Editor in Chief of Nature Communications. She is passionate about mentorship, research integrity, as well as collaboration and inclusion in research. As part of her desire to promote underrepresented groups in research, in 2018 she co-launched the Nature Research Inspiring Science Award for women early-career researchers. She holds a PhD on genetics from University of Cambridge, UK.

Shunsuke Managi is a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Urban Institute at Kyushu University. He has been a director for Inclusive Wealth Report 2018, 2023 and 2024 (IWR), an ISC working group member for the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2023, a lead author for the IPCC, a coordinating lead author for the IPBES, a coordinating lead author UNESCO Assessment, lead author of Policy Briefs T20 for the Presidency of G20 in 2022 & 2023, and co-editor of "Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics". He was the recipient of the JSPS Prize and a council member of The Science Council of Japan. His main research interests are on urban engineering and environmental economics. He proposes the inclusive wealth index, which integrates biophysical quantities and monetary values of natural, human, and produced capital. Inclusive wealth comprises the assets that underlie human well-being and going beyond GDP.  He holds a PhD from the University of Rhode Island.

Yasushi Ishihara is the President of the Tsukuba University of Technology, National University Corporation (NTUT). Before that he served as a Professor at the Research and Support Center on Higher Education for People with Disabilities at NTUT. NTUT is the only educational institute for the Disabled in Japan.  With a focus on advanced education for the disabled, he has been involved in the support for their career development and the improvement of the Diversity, Equity＆Inclusion environment at worksites. From an educational viewpoint, he has worked to develop an effective approach for fostering an inclusive environment in society by enhancing the self-advocacy skills of disabled persons who are often seen as minorities.  He received his PhD in Disability Sciences from the University of Tsukuba.

Etsuko Yamaguchi is the Executive Director of the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP).  She has overseen international programs and projects promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Asia and Africa in a wide range of areas, such as HIV/AIDS, safe motherhood, male participation, and youth empowerment through social and behavioral change communication and community health systems strengthening.  She also worked as a Project Formulation Advisor in health and social welfare in Indonesia for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) (2016 – 2018) and a JICA expert in HIV/AIDS prevention in Ghana (2008 – 2009, 2011 – 2014).  She joined JOICFP in 2004, assumed the role of the Director of International Program in 2019 and Deputy Executive Director in 2023.