Year: 2017

下向 依梨 Eri Shimomukai

Originally from Osaka Prefecture, Eri Shimomukai works as an educational creator, primarily designing cross-curricular English and math materials and curricula for elementary school students, as well as providing consulting on classroom management.

After graduating from junior high school, she moved alone to Switzerland to attend a fully residential high school. Upon graduation, she returned to Japan and enrolled in Keio University’s Faculty of Policy Management.

She created Changemaking Patterns in both Japanese and English, a work that articulates the tacit knowledge and experiential insights of social entrepreneurs using the Pattern Language method, and published the English edition. In 2014, she moved to the U.S. and earned a master’s degree in Learning Sciences and Developmental Psychology from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. After returning to Japan, she taught at a full-time alternative elementary school in Tokyo.

She later assumed her current roles as Director of Live Innovation and Manager of the Education Creation Division.

Elämä

礒谷 有亮 Yusuke Isotani

Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the City University of New York, specializing in the history of photography. He is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on the evolution of photography in France between the two World Wars.

Originally from Osaka, Japan. During his master’s program at Osaka University’s Graduate School of Letters, he spent a year as an exchange student in Strasbourg, France. He then moved to the U.S. for his doctoral studies, where he has also taught as a lecturer at various CUNY campuses while pursuing his research.

Because his field focuses on France, he frequently travels between the U.S., Europe, and Japan. From a young age, he has been fascinated by language in general—exploring dialects and standard forms, comparing different languages, examining spoken versus written language, and studying wordplay, onomatopoeia, and etymology from around the world has now become a full-fledged hobby.

松川 倫子 Tomoko Matsukawa

Manager at the nonprofit organization Acumen. She is involved in designing learning content focused on perspectives, skills, and leadership essential for addressing social challenges. Specifically, she played a central role in launching +Acumen’s large-scale online courses and is a core member of the Acumen Fellows Program, currently offered in Pakistan, India, and East Africa.

Her professional background includes positions at Goldman Sachs Japan and Globis Corporation. In 2012, she moved to the United States for graduate studies, earning a Master’s degree in Education in 2013. She is currently based in New York. Since 2016, she has also served as a board member of PIECES, a nonprofit organization in Japan.

Blog: “Learning?”
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