Chief, Japan Science and Technology Agency
Natsuko Kawazoe is the Chief of International Affairs Department as well as serving as a member of STI for SDGs Task Team for Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) from June this year. She is in charge of Strategic Planning and Management of International Cooperation mainly with Middle East, Africa and European countries in order to develop and broaden bilateral and multilateral relationships. Natsuko has been seconded to Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for two years from 2014 to 2016 as a Science and Technology Expert, organizing Joint Committee Meetings with European Countries based on bilateral Agreements on Cooperation in S&T for enhancing cooperation. Prior to JST, she was the Program Director and Production Coordinator working for TV production companies based in Japan and the UK, including NHK and BBC. Her role there was to distribute forefront issues in science to the general public utilizing the power of broadcasting. Her scientific career included research in the field of Biodiversity Conservation and Management (University of Oxford), Paleontology and Archaeology (University of Tsukuba) . She also experienced NASA Planetary Biology Internship in the U.S. and fieldworks in Australia, Syria and Egypt. Natsuko has taken part in organizing the 11th Science Agora, Japan’s largest scale open science forum held in Tokyo every November in 2016 for bridging multiple stakeholders, which focused on the remaining challenges of five years after the 3.11 Disasters.
