Tomoya is a PhD student at the Department of Anthropology at UVA. He was born and raised in a historic town called Himeji in Japan. He then moved to Tokyo for college and received BA (’20) and MA (’21) degrees in social sciences at Hitotsubashi University with a year abroad at UVA.

Throughout his university life, student activities have been his essential source of academic inspiration. As he worked as a resident assistant at an international residential college at Hitotsubashi University, he was inspired by the college’s idea of a resident hall as an arena of learning and developed his broad academic interests of how social policies and situations are being formed and negotiated by individuals in each moment of everyday lives. His current research explores how DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practices in American higher education are being experienced by diverse student bodies across gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, religion/spirituality, political affiliations, and other factors.

Diversity is one essential keyword that describes his career as a practicing researcher. While he was at UVA as an exchange student, he volunteered at the Multicultural Student Services and the Maxine Platzer Lynn’s Women’s Center. With know-how he gained there, he then founded the first gender/power-based violence prevention organization at his college and a diversity center at his residential college in Tokyo. He is now thrilled to work with Hereford Hoos!