I am primarily a historian of medicine and sciences in modern Japan specialised in reproduction and population, but, over the past few years, I have grown interests in the inter-Asian health and medical exchange, especially focusing on the relationship between China and Japan.

My interests are: 

• Discourses on Japanese population, and the interactions between population policies and the sciences of population
• Japanese family planning initiatives in East and Southeast Asia in the 1960s & 1970s as development aids
• Sino-Japanese medical exchange and diplomacy
• HIstory of involuntary sterilization in Japan, 1940s-70s
• History of geriatrics and gerontology in modern Japan

My latest book, Science for Governing Japan's Population (Cambridge University Press, 2023 - open access), describes how various medical and social scientific fields and practices developed in Japan c. 1860s-1960s around the idea of “population” (jinkō), and through the process to make national policies. I am also working on a project, 'Family Planning, Health Promotion and Global Medicine, 1945-1995: The activities of Japanese health campaigners around the world', in which I examine Japanese family planning initiatives since the late 1960s (both governmental and non-governmental) in 'developing countries' unfolded under the aegis of overseas medical/technical cooperation and in the context of international health. I am looking at Sino-Japanese technical cooperation in family planning and maternal and child health, as a case study that challenges the historiography of global health.

As part of my research on the history of medical diplomacy, I am involved in the Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy (STAND) as Vice President, whcih forms part of in the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Division of History of Science and Technology (IUHPST/DHST). 

In 2023, I carried out historical research on involuntary sterilization in Japan at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, as a visiting fellow funded by Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.

In 2024, as a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Science, Technology and Medicine at Peking University, I conduct research on Sino-Japanese medical and science diplomacy after the 1970s. This is part of the European Research Council Advanced Research grant project, Neworld@a, which examines the entanglements of scientific data exchange and international relations.