IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film (MediAsia) > MediAsia2021 > Speakers

Speakers

Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

  • Mehrasa Alizadeh
    Mehrasa Alizadeh
    Osaka University Cybermedia Center, Japan
  • Eric Hawkinson
    Eric Hawkinson
    Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan
  • Amelia Ijiri
    Amelia Ijiri
    Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan
  • Earl Jackson
    Earl Jackson
    Asia University, Taiwan & University of California, United States
  • Jay Klaphake
    Jay Klaphake
    Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan
  • Angus McGregor
    Angus McGregor
    Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan & Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School, Japan
  • Corey Noxon
    Corey Noxon
    Ritsumeikan University, Japan & Lake Biwa Museum, Japan
  • Brian Victoria
    Brian Victoria
    Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK
  • Kojiro Yano
    Kojiro Yano
    Osaka Institute of Technology, Japan

Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past MediAsia conferences via the links below.

MediAsia2020 MediAsia2019 MediAsia2018
MediAsia2017 MediAsia2016 MediAsia2015
MediAsia2014 MediAsia2013 MediAsia2012
MediAsia2011 MediAsia2010
Mehrasa Alizadeh
Osaka University Cybermedia Center, Japan

Biography

Mehrasa Alizadeh is an assistant professor at the Cybermedia Center, Osaka University. She conducts collaborative research on the use of multimodal learning analytics to support learners in face-to-face and remote learning settings. Mehrasa is interested in immersive learning and virtual reality for language education.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Eric Hawkinson
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan

Biography

Eric is a learning futurist, tinkering with and designing technologies that may better inform the future of teaching and learning. Eric is president and research coordinator of MAVR, a research group working in immersive technologies for teaching and learning, and more specifically, augmented and virtual realities in language learning. Eric's day job is at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies where he teaches courses and conducts research on issues related to technology in tourism and education. Eric also leads a team of interactive media designers for TEDxKyoto. His passion project, ARientation is an award winning, free-to-use, privacy-by-design augmented learning platform to rapidly prototype augmented learning environments, also aiming to spread awareness of increasingly aggressive data collection models using immersive technology. Eric's other projects have included augmented tourism rallies, AR community art exhibitions, mixed reality escape rooms, and other experiments in immersive technology.

Keynote Presentation (2021) | When Media Watches You – The Rise of Immersive Technology
Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Amelia Ijiri
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan

Biography

Amelia Ijiri is an Educational Technology Specialist and Instructional Designer who received her Master's of Science from the University of Central Missouri in 2017. Her research interests include gamifying museums using Augmented Reality, Web 3.0, and online communities. She teaches storytelling using Virtual Reality.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Earl Jackson
Asia University, Taiwan & University of California, United States

Biography

Earl Jackson is the author of Strategies of Deviance: Studies in Gay Male Representation (Indiana University Press) as well as numerous articles on Japanese and Korean Cinema, New Narrative, and sexuality. His performances pieces have been staged in Minneapolis, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and the Pit Inn, Shinjuku. He has worked in the Korean independent film industry in several capacities: co-director (with Kim Jeong) and editor of an experimental short travelogue, Tabi/T’abi; contributing screenwriter for Viewfinder (Kim Jeong 2008); interviewee and researcher for New Woman: Her First Song (Kim Soyoung 2004); and as actor, playing the villain in Barbie (Yi Sangwoo 2010).

He has taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of California, Santa Cruz, Korea University, the Korean National University of Arts, and National Chiao Tung University, and was a visiting scholar at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai’i. His recent research includes a study of the relation among technology, subjectivity, and the politics that inform and circumscribe them. In addition to his research, writing and teaching, Earl Jackson has found time to contribute a full-length audio commentary to the recent Blu-ray release of the Japanese classic Blind Beast on Arrow Video, as well as a video essay for the Blu-ray release of the Japanese classic Giants and Toys, also on Arrow Video.

Earl Jackson is currently writing a book on crisis and signification in Japanese film genres, but his presentation for KAMC/MediAsia will draw on his monograph on the relations between theory and practice in Japanese cinema.

Keynote Presentation (2021) | Spectacle and Scrutiny: The Analytic Image in Japanese Cinema
Jay Klaphake
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan

Biography

Jay serves as Senior TEDx Ambassador for Japan, and is the founder of TEDxKyoto, Japan's largest TEDx event, held at the iconic Kyoto International Conference Center. The talks produced by his team have been viewed more than 12 million times and translated into 40 languages. He is currently a professor and vice-chair of the Department of Global Studies, in the Faculty of Global Engagement at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, where he teaches, among other things, law, international negotiation, and a seminar on innovation, creativity and leadership. He also serves as a member of the Kyoto International School Board of Trustees. Early in his career, Professor Klaphake worked for the United States House of Representatives, in the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, and as executive director for the University of Minnesota Coalition for Higher Education. His research interests include Legal and Ethical Issues in Immersive Education.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Angus McGregor
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan & Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School, Japan

Biography

Angus McGregor holds a Master’s of Applied Arts and Sciences in Global Studies from University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has been a teacher in the Course of International and Cultural Studies at Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School in Kyoto, Japan for 28 years, currently serving as the coordinator of the course. He also teaches Model United Nations in the Department of Global Studies Department at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Angus is the Director of the Kansai High School Model United Nations, which held its 31st annual conference online this past June and is a member of the organizing committee for the Japan University English Model United Nations conference. He is active in the community with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and UNESCO activities as the organizer of the ASPnet Kyoto UNESCO High School Committee, a member of the Kyoto UNESCO association, and also serves as a co-organizer of TEDxKyoto. Angus is always up for sharing good ideas over a cup of coffee.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Corey Noxon
Ritsumeikan University, Japan & Lake Biwa Museum, Japan

Biography

Corey Noxon is an archaeologist whose research is focused on the prehistoric Jomon period in Japan. His research interests include prehistoric population estimates, residential mobility patterns, and the use of photogrammetry and other 3D technologies in archaeological research. He is currently a senior researcher at the Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO) in Kyoto working on a project exploring ways in which photogrammetry and 3D modeling can be used to estimate energy expenditure related to dwelling construction. Corey also holds a position as a special researcher at the Lake Biwa Museum where he is exploring ways to incorporate photogrammetry, AR, and VR applications at the museum in order to improve visitor experiences and increase the accessibility of museum holdings to a broader audience.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
Brian Victoria
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

Biography

Brian Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska and a 1961 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He holds a MA in Buddhist Studies from Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo, and a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University.

In addition to a second, enlarged edition of Zen At War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Brian's major writings include Zen War Stories (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); an autobiographical work in Japanese entitled Gaijin de ari, Zen bozu de ari (As a Foreigner, As a Zen Priest), published by San-ichi Shobo in 1971; Zen Master Dōgen, coauthored with Prof. Yokoi Yūhō of Aichi-gakuin University (Weatherhill, 1976); and a translation of The Zen Life by Sato Koji (Weatherhill, 1972). In addition, Brian has published numerous journal articles, focusing on the relationship of not only Buddhism but religion in general, to violence and warfare.

From 2005 to 2013 Brian was a Professor of Japanese Studies and director of the AEA “Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program” at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, OH, USA. From 2013 to 2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. His latest book, Zen Terror: The Death of Democracy in Prewar Japan was published by Rowman & Littlefield in February 2020. Brian is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies and a fully ordained Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect.

Keynote Presentation (2021) | 'Holy War' as Portrayed in Japanese Films, 1937-45
Kojiro Yano
Osaka Institute of Technology, Japan

Biography

Kojiro Yano was initially trained as a medical doctor in Japan and then moved to the UK to pursue his career as a computational biologist. After obtaining a PhD at the University of Liverpool, he moved to the University of Cambridge to work as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a senior research associate. In 2011 he returned to Japan to accept his current position at Osaka Institute of Technology, where he started to work on educational technology, particularly for STEM and TESOL. His current research interest is the application of VR to education. He is also involved in various projects to facilitate the introduction of VR technology to schools. His Facebook group, "Teachers' Tips for VR" is the largest group for VR education in Japan. He is a vice-chairperson of the JACET Kansai Research Committee and an editor of Computer & Education journal.

Workshop Presentation (2021) | Immersive Media Design Showcase
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