TAOYAKA PROGRAM for creating a flexible, enduring, peaceful society　Organization of Program for Leading Graduate Schools

TAOYAKA Student Ambassador

The position of the TAOYAKA Student Ambassador (TSA) was created in 2015 in response to strong student demand for representatives, who could act as facilitators and/or mediators on student issues. 

The first TSAs, Fuyo Yamamoto and Benjamin Blevins, were appointed in 2015 by Professor Kaneko from the Social Implementation course. In addition to their above mentioned role, they also planned a quarterly social event for TAOYAKA students, staff members, and professors. In addition, as a result of these TSAs’ effort, the TAOYAKA Student Seminar Series (TSSS) initiated on November 30, 2016. The series is an interdisciplinary endeavor offering venue for students to meet and exchange information about their research and ideas. The first TSAs worked for two academic years and then passed their roles on to the next generation of students at the beginning of the 2017 academic year. 

The second TSAs, Rie Usui, Swagata Das, and Thomas Kloepfer, were appointed as representatives of one of the three divisions in the TAOYAKA program: culture creation, technical creation, and social implementation, respectively. These second TSAs continued to support TSSS and worked closely with the Office for implementing the series. They also summarized roles and responsibilities of the TSA and put it all together in the file, “TAOYAKA Student Ambassador (TSA) Position.”

The list of TAOYAKA Student Ambassadors (2015～)