Dr. Nathalie Cavasin

She earned her PhD in Geography at the University of Toulouse II, France, in 1996. Her first experience in Japan started in 1992, when she was awarded the Monbusho scholarship for her dissertation research during 18 months at the Department of Geosciences of Tsukuba University. Dr. Nathalie Cavasin is currently a visiting scientist at the Global Information and Telecommunication Institute of Waseda University, and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Business, Nihon University. She is also acting as a consultant for Japanese firms in relation with France. During her career in Japan, as the holder of a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and an EU Science and Technology fellowships, she has worked as a researcher in other prestigious universities such as the University of Tokyo, and Keio University. She has also taught at Tsukuba University and at the Temple University Japan (US University from Philadelphia). Besides academia, she has also experience in business developing partnerships in Japan in the area of R&D for a French telecommunication carrier. Moreover, she provided consultation and advice on science and technology to French Embassy in Japan. She performed research on the relationship between techno-industrial change, IT and regional development planning policies, focusing on urban analysis and decentralization, as applied to high-technology science parks. She studied the relation between industry, academia, and government, and their impact on the creation and transfer of technology in the current climate of globalization, with case histories of Japan and South Korea. She authored academic articles and produced reports for the French government, and published articles in international journals. She is the author of more than 30 entries on Japan in the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (2002) in 6 volumes, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. She presented research results in academic conferences in U.S., Europe, and Asia, gave presentation to business circles in Tokyo. Her areas of interest include social and economic geography, ICT and regional development, globalization and international business. She is now writing a book for a French publisher in Paris on Japanese economy, geography and society. Like many academics her hobby is her research, but she is also playing Nagauta shamisen, a three-stringed plucked lute. She had in October 2003, her first stage at Tessenkai Noh Theater in Aoyama.