Directors

Shun Kanda
Director, MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative
Senior Lecturer of Architecture, MIT
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Keio University

A Tokyo native and MIT Department of Architecture faculty member since 1979, Kanda has directed the MIT Japan Design Workshop’s “Continuity & Transformation in Architecture and Community Design” since 1990, working with MIT students and Japanese university counterparts to develop sustainable models for urban and regional communities in Japan.

James Wescoat
Co-Director, MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative
Professor of Architecture, MIT

A landscape architect and Aga Khan Professor in the MIT Department of Architecture, Wescoat brings years of distinguished experience in the area of disaster relief planning. Recognitions include the National Academy of Environmental Design, the National Research Council and a past Rome Prize Fellow.

Yoshihiro Hiraoka
Collaborating Director, MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative
Professor of Architecture, Miyagi University

An architect, researcher and community designer, Professor Hiraoka and his team of faculty and students have begun the arduous task of disaster relief from the earliest days following 3/11. Having spent several months visiting MIT, it was on his last day in Boston when the tragedy hit at his hometown of Sendai.

Hiroto Kobayashi
Collaborating Director, MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative
Associate Professor of Architecture, Keio University SFC

Mr. Kobayashi is an architect and faculty of Keio SFC University’s School of Media Governance & Policy, co-director with Shun Kanda since 2006 of the Tané Initiative and MIT’s counterpart in the Japan Design Workshop. Kobayashi holds a M.Design and D.Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is Principal of KMDW in Tokyo.