HWS News
19 September 2025 Yoshikawa Named 2025 Kinghorn Global Fellow
Lisa Yoshikawa has been awarded the Kinghorn Fellowship, which is presented to an outstanding HWS faculty member who exemplifies global citizenship. She will deliver the annual Kinghorn Global Fellow Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 23.
As part of her fellowship, Yoshikawa will deliver the annual Kinghorn Global Lecture on Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. in the Fish Screening Room at the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts. Her talk is titled, Scouting Pacific Islands: Science, Diplomacy, and the Interconnectedness of Knowledge Production.
A member of the HWS faculty since 2006, Yoshikawa is a historian of the Japanese empire whose research investigates imperialism, knowledge production and intellectual diplomacy. She is the author of Making History Matter: Kuroita Katsumi and the Construction of Imperial Japan (Harvard Asia Center, 2017) and is currently working on multiple book-length projects surrounding the Japanese empire’s history of conservation science, including zoogeography, limnology and coral/reef sciences.
On campus, Yoshikawa has been an instrumental part of infusing Asian content into courses across the curriculum and broadening opportunities for student engagement with Asia. Recently, she co-presented research at the ASIANetwork Annual Conference in San Antonio with Assistant Professor of Media and Society Jiangtao Harry Gu ’13 on strategies for meaningfully integrating Southeast Asia into liberal arts programs.
In the classroom, Yoshikawa has demonstrated a deep commitment to developing globally engaged, critically informed students.
In her nomination letter, co-authored by faculty in the Department of International Relations including professors Kevin Dunn, Stacey Philbrick Yadav and Vikash Yadav, they share that Yoshikawa is “an excellent teacher, broadening the global horizons of HWS students.”
Her courses on premodern and modern Asia-Pacific explore empire, colonialisms, cross-cultural and cross-species encounters, nation-building and environmental history. Her advanced seminars and historiographic training have become cornerstones for students preparing for postgraduate research and academic careers.
Yoshikawa is a global ambassador of HWS. She recently held a Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholarship to Taiwan at the Institute of Taiwan History at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. She returned the following year with a Global Taiwan Institute Taiwan Studies Scholarship to pursue additional research at the Institute of Modern History.
Yoshikawa earned her M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Yale University, and a B.A. in history from Wellesley College.
The Kinghorn Fellowship, established in 1970 through the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. William Reckmeyer in honor of John Readie and Florence B. Kinghorn, celebrates faculty whose work exemplifies a commitment to global citizenship. Recipients receive a $5,000 stipend and are invited to deliver the annual Kinghorn Global Fellow Lecture during their award year.
Learn more about the John R. and Florence B. Kinghorn Fellowship and view past Fellows here.
