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United States
former journalist, non-profit founder, currently a principal at SYPartners. Fighting for equity with a strong strategic eye + a belief in good design.
The Gender Compendium is a print and digital artifact designed to help anyone build awareness around gender inclusivity, and take a second look at our assumptions and attachments to binary thinking. I had the privilege of leading a rotating team of brilliant designers and strategists through this internal passion project at SYPartners.
I led an SYPartners team through the conception, design, and production of this guide to how to create a more age-inclusive fashion industry. The physical artifact was printed on large format glossy magazine paper.
In the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, I traveled to a small surf town near Fukushima to document the lives of the residents, whose lives were severely impacted by the disaster. I co-produced and co-directed We Are All Radioactive with Jason Wishnow, the creator of TEDTalks. You can watch all 7 episodes online: https://vimeo.com/waar
The MIT Media Lab Director's Fellows program was a fellowship program designed to bring a diverse global network of extraordinary leaders into collaboration with the Lab's students, faculty, and advisors. I worked as the right hand person to then-Director Joi Ito to design, build, and run the program from 2012-2015.
My first physical book, inspired by a Wired Magazine article about Japanese life hacks, was published by Chronicle Books in 2008. Description: Japan has a way of thinking that is just . . . different. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tokyo-born journalist Lisa Katayama's collection of urawaza (a Japanese word for secret lifestyle tricks and techniques). Want to turbocharge your sled? Spray the bottom with nonstick cooking spray. Can't find someone to water your plants while you're...
Nisan didn't mean to fall in love with Nemutan. Their first encounter - at a comic-book convention that Nisan's gaming friends dragged him to in Tokyo - was serendipitous. Nisan was wandering aimlessly around the crowded exhibition hall when he suddenly found himself staring into Nemutan's bright blue eyes.
The XQ Super School Project is Laurene Powell Jobs' initiative to reimagine and redesign the American high school. Its foundation is a set of learning modules for educators around the country, organized into three phases—Discover, Design, Develop—that works as a system of interrelated topics that draw on decades of science on learning and school design. I was the lead writer and editor in chief of the Knowledge Modules and other related materials that we designed at SYPartners for the...
It's been a year since the death of the King of Pop. Singer-songwriter Judith Hill was hired to perform with Michael Jackson on his never-realized tour. She could make a career in Jackson's shadow, but she's ready to step out on her own. Produced by Lisa Katayama.
Vestergaard Frandsen makes an ingenious water filter that's too expensive for the people who need it. They figured out how to give it away and still make money.
Photos by Adam Lam The first time I fell in love with timur was in a tiny cavelike kitchen in Kathmandu Valley. A little girl named Srijana put a tiny black peppercorn-like object in my palm. ̶...
The surest thing at the coming Olympic Games in London - more than the swimmer Michael Phelps, or the sprinter Usain Bolt, or even the American men's basketball team - may be a 23-year-old Japanese gymnast nicknamed Superman.
If a few very smart neuroscientists are right, with enough number crunching and a powerful brain scanner, science can pluck pictures-and maybe one day even thoughts- directly from your brain
Most people with my lifestyle would never even dream of getting a dog. I grew up on the other side of the world, and all my jobs throughout the years have had an element of global exploration that requires airplane travel. But Ruby and I made it work.
Estee Longah, a fabulous vintage queen and founder of a semi-pro all-Asian drag troupe called the Rice Rockettes, puts on lavish, highly sexualized performances... They're empowering a population of gay men to experiment with a mode of self-expression that is often taboo and sometimes even non-existent in their own cultures.
The Japanese schoolgirl image was made famous by comic books and cartoons. But not everyone thinks they're so kawaii (cute). What do Japanese women make of this archetype? Lisa Katayama met three young art stars whose work reclaims and re-invents female pop imagery, in some disturbing ways. But don't call them feminists.
Tokyo's youth dress up and let loose in costume-play cafés The guy in the pink shirt is telling a story. He's waving his neon-pink baseball cap in the air, gesturing wildly with his arms. I can't make out what he's saying because of the loud pop music in the background, but it must be funny beca...