Syracuse University Libraries’   has announced that the have been processed and are now open for research. The archival collection measures 103 linear feet and documents the remarkable life and career of the trailblazing marathoner, broadcast journalist, author, sports and social advocate, and Syracuse alumna.

Switzer ’68, G’72 made history in 1967 when she became the first woman to officially register for and run in the Boston Marathon. Her perseverance in the face of a race official’s attempt to physically remove her from the course became one of sport’s most iconic moments and a beacon for women’s rights and equality in sport. Switzer went on to win the 1974 New York City Marathon.

She originated and developed the Avon International Running Circuit, a landmark global women’s running program instrumental in securing the inclusion of the women’s marathon in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, and earned an Emmy Award for her sports broadcasting work. Switzer was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011 for creating positive global social change and was part of the inaugural class of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. This past February, the University honored Switzer by raising her iconic running bib, number 261, to the rafters of the JMA Wireless Dome during a women’s basketball game.

The Switzer Papers have grown substantially through a series of donations beginning in 2005. The collection includes extensive photographic material, news clippings, speeches, correspondence, scrapbooks and memorabilia. A major addition to the collection, pre-inventoried by Jenny Smith G’25, Switzer’s personal archive assistant, was transferred to the SCRC in July 2025. This addition significantly expanded the holdings with a substantial body of audio and video recordings documenting Switzer’s decades of broadcast journalism work, global Avon Running Circuit events, Olympic coverage, interviews, speeches and appearances on programs ranging from the Oprah Winfrey Show to network morning news. In total, the Kathrine Switzer Papers fill a meaningful gap in the archival record of women’s athletics and Title IX-era activism.

“The Kathrine Switzer Papers offer an extraordinary window into the history of women in sport and the tireless advocacy that transformed it,” says Nicolette A. Dobrowolski, director of the SCRC. “With the significant addition of media and photographic materials in 2025, this collection is now an even richer resource for research in athletics, gender history, broadcast journalism and social change.”

The processing of the collection was completed this past spring. Students, faculty, staff and the public are invited to explore materials supporting research in women’s and gender studies, journalism, sports history, communication, public policy, sociology and activism.

“Women’s running has created one of the greatest social revolutions of the last century. Millions of women now run for the empowerment it brings them, changing forever their sense of limitation and power. Being a major part of making that happen has been relentless work, but also the greatest honor and privilege,” says Switzer. “I am deeply grateful to SCRC for making the documentation of this historic achievement available for broad research and engagement.”

To learn more about the collection or arrange a research visit, contact  SCRC at scrc@syr.edu.

Seventeen students from Syracuse University, including students from the , , and , traveled to Asia in May as part of an 18-day study abroad trip for the   (SPM 440/SAL 440) class.�� , associate professor of sport management, ���Ի��� , professor of sport management, led the trip.

Traveling to Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo, the students learned about local sport ecosystems by visiting the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee, Korean Sport Promotion Foundation, K-league, Chinese Soccer League, the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and more. They learned about the globalization strategies of U.S. sport entities by meeting with NFL China, NBA China, MLB Asia and the PGA Tour; and studied the impact of mega sporting events by visiting Seoul’s Olympic Park, Beijing National Stadium (also known as the Bird’s Nest, which played host of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and 2022 Winter Olympic Games) and Japan National Stadium.

The Syracuse students engaged in joint classes with local students from Sungkyunkwan University and the Chinese University of Political Science and Law. They also  attended local events such as a Korean baseball game at Jamsil Stadium, Chinese soccer at Worker’s Stadium, Nike high school basketball at Wukesong Arena and Japanese baseball at Tokyo Dome.

The trip provided opportunities for cultural immersion, including gaming and esports, screen golf, kung fu and kendo, as well as sightseeing at the Korean National Palace, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Tokyo Samurai Museum.

“Taking in the beautiful grounds of Gyeongbokgung Palace was a one-of-a-kind experience that can’t be expressed in words,” said sport management major Zach Siegel ’27. “You could feel the rich history and culture all around.”

The students kept a of their day-by-day experiences.

“This study abroad program was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We just didn’t just learn about sports management in a classroom, we experienced the culture firsthand,”  said sport analytics major Jeremy Shatzer ’28.

Story by Margie Chetney

Former Syracuse University men’s soccer standout was on his way home from a recent training session when he received the message that would change his life.

As his phone dinged, Robinson saw a WhatsApp message from Mauricio Pochettino, head coach of the (USMNT), containing a video message announcing that Robinson had earned a spot on the .

“I was so excited. I rushed home and called my family. It was a special moment for sure!” Robinson says in an exclusive interview coordinated by the USMNT.

Robinson,��a defender for the Orange during the , will become the first Orange alumnus to play for the USMNT at the World Cup, which kicked off June 11. The U.S. defeated Paraguay 4-1 Friday night in the team’s opening match in Inglewood, California.

“[This] feels great. Obviously, it’s been an honor to be here in this group, but it’s just a dream come true,” says Robinson, a native of Arlington, Massachusetts, who plays for in Major League Soccer (MLS). “It’s a surreal moment to be here to represent the country, represent the nation in the world’s biggest tournament. I’m definitely honored.”

Sweet Redemption Following Devastating Injury

The satisfaction of making the U.S. roster is even sweeter when Robinson thinks back to where he was four years ago, watching the 2022 World Cup as a fan instead of suiting up for the U.S. Robinson, who was widely considered to be one of the team’s top prospects heading into the Qatar World Cup, was sidelined with a ruptured Achilles tendon in his left leg.

The hard work and long days rehabbing from the leg injury were all worth it when Robinson found out he made the national team roster.

“I’m so thankful for my support group, my friends, my family and my loved ones that motivated me and got me in this position,” Robinson says. “Thankfully, I got back from that injury and was able to continue to compete with the national team and here I am.”

Lifelong Lessons Learned at Syracuse

Robinson started all 42 games during his Orange career as a key contributor on head coach ‘s squad that won the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championship and made its first College Cup appearance during the 2015 season. Robinson scored eight goals and added one assist during his two seasons and was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2016.

“To represent Syracuse means a lot because I have so much love for the University,” Robinson says. “I love being a part of Orange Nation and everything Syracuse [represents]. I was there for three great semesters and have so many memories, so many people that I met that are now lifelong friends.”

One of the people who made the biggest impression on Robinson during his time on campus was McIntyre, who like Robinson was a center back during his playing days. Robinson credits McIntyre with teaching lessons that extended well beyond soccer.

“Mac taught me a lot about what it means to work hard, to compete and to stay focused. To be vocal and be comfortable with being uncomfortable as a center back trying to push forward and lead a group of guys,” Robinson says. “He challenged me, but that challenge helped me be ready for the MLS once I was drafted. He taught me a lot on and off the field, so I’m forever grateful.”

After leaving Syracuse to pursue his professional soccer dreams, Robinson was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 MLS Super Draft by Atlanta United. Robinson signed a contract with FC Cincinnati in 2024 and has been a regular presence for the USMNT, representing the U.S. at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and appearing in 40 matches since his national debut in 2019.

Among his international competition highlights was scoring the in extra time to lift the U.S. past Mexico in the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup final.

At the World Cup, Robinson will be joined by Tajon Buchanan, who is representing Team Canada. Buchanan played for the Orange in 2017 and 2018, scoring 12 goals with six assists during his two seasons.

Before the first match kicks off, a group of students has already run thousands of simulations to predict who will lift the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

The has published its , featuring game-by-game forecasts, heat maps and predictions for each group and for each nation.

President Evan Pegorsch ’27, a sport analytics and economics major in the and data analyst for the Orange’s men’s soccer team, and Noah Bair ’28, a sport analytics major, discuss their predictive model, who they think will win it all and the U.S. team’s chances of advancing out of their group and into the knockout stage.

What makes the model stand out?

Noah Bair: We wanted to study those contributing factors to team success at the World Cup—roster quality, previous World Cup experience, how teams have historically performed and whether a team has a veteran or a first-time coach—to think about our predictive model as sports fans rather than analysts. What important characteristics are missing, and how can we add to the research?

Evan Pegorsch: We’re providing the data to back up why we think a team is going to win or lose. We don’t just rely on FIFA rankings. We also factor in how many players each team has on the Ballon d’Or rankings [a list of the top 30 players in the world], how each team performs playing in different temperatures, how long the coach has been with the team and other key indicators. If you just went off the FIFA world rankings, our model overperformed that baseline by 15%.

Who are the favorites to win the World Cup?

Pegorsch: The consensus favorite is Spain, but my number one is France. Their attack is overpowering, they have enough depth in other key areas, and the defense is looking good. Then it’s Spain. Then you must include Messi and Argentina, which has great team chemistry and a willingness to fight for each other. Then I’d go with England and Portugal, which has a talented midfield and a defense that’s on the rise.

Bair: France is my number one, based on what they’ve done historically—they won it all in 2018 and were runners-up in 2022. That historical dominance along with the quality of players is going to take them very far. Then it’s Argentina. Anytime Lionel Messi is on the field you have a chance to win. Then I like Portugal. The quality in their midfield is second to none. England having a new manager is going to help, and this is an invigorated team with a lot of young talent that can bring home the trophy. I’m also high on the Netherlands. They have a deep team and one of the best benches in the World Cup.

What will be the impact of an expanded field and multiple co-host nations?

Bair: For the first time, we have three co-host nations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and 48 participating teams, the largest field in World Cup history. This will create an unexpected challenge. Unlike during their domestic season when matches are centralized and you might be traveling 30-40 miles for matches, these teams will be traveling across countries and for far greater distances than they’re used to, which could definitely impact the matches.

Pegorsch: Travel fatigue is going to be a big factor in this tournament. Teams will have to adapt to added travel and shorter rest times between matches. And adding more teams decreases the likelihood of every single country winning it all in our model. The top teams have a smaller chance of winning it all than they have in the past, because there’s more potential for upsets and more variance.

How far does the model think the U.S. will advance?

Pegorsch: Our model gives them a 4% chance to win it all. Being on home soil helps. I worry about the goalkeeper, which is a huge area of weakness. When you get later into the World Cup rounds, the chances of dealing with either a penalty kick or penalty kick shootout increase, and I don’t trust our goalkeeping there. But there’s a lot of excitement around the U.S. and it’s realistic for them to reach the quarterfinals.

Bair: As tournament hosts, they’ve been given a favorable draw and don’t have a great contender in their group. The U.S. is the favorite to win Group D [88.7% to advance] and make the knockout stage. The talent is there to make it to the quarterfinals, and the U.S. will get a boost playing in front of the home crowd. But realistically, I think the team will lose in the round of 16.

What’s a dark horse country with the talent to make a deep run?

Bair: Ecuador is an up-and-coming team with some quality players who have been on the rise since 2022. Because Ecuador doesn’t have that historic success on the national stage, the data will likely say they’re not going to go very far, but Ecuador has one of the best defenses in the world, and at the World Cup, defense can carry a team.

Pegorsch: The model is high on Norway. They have one of the best players in the world in Erling Haaland, and while Norway is 29th or 30th in the FIFA rankings [at the time the data was collected], we have them with the 11th best odds to win because they have strong attacking options.

The night Dan Zhang G’11 arrived in the United States, she slept on the floor of her empty apartment, dreaming of a new life.

She had $500 to her name—no safety net, no family nearby and she spoke only conversational English. She had an acceptance letter from the , a paying job as a teaching assistant, and an unshakeable belief that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

“I still remember that night when I was doing research on Maxwell,” Zhang says. “I told my dorm mate: ‘Only if I can get into Maxwell, I think I will be the luckiest person in the whole world.’”

She got in, and she completed a master’s degree. Today, Zhang—the chief financial officer of ClickUp, an AI productivity platform with more than 1,000 employees and clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies—is making sure the next generation of students has the support she once needed.

Zhang made a financial gift to the Maxwell School, jump-starting the which provides help to undergraduate and graduate students facing urgent needs including emergency travel, food, housing, visa issues and tuition.

The emergency fund relies on donor support, and Zhang is hoping fellow Maxwell alumni will join her in contributing to it. “Every gift, no matter the amount, can keep a student’s dream alive,” she said.

From Beijing to Syracuse

Zhang grew up in China, earned an undergraduate degree in sociology in Beijing and worked briefly as a journalist before deciding she wanted more. She was drawn to questions about gender inequality, organizational structure and how societies work, and she believed graduate study in the U.S. was the path forward.

Zhang received a string of rejection letters before the Maxwell School saw in her the skills and qualities other institutions overlooked. “That was really life changing because at the time I felt stuck and I was ready to give up,” she says, adding that the acceptance letter signaled, “‘We’re willing to take a chance on you—arms wide open.’”

The early days in the U.S. were challenging beyond the financial constraints.

“I came to this country like a blank canvas,” she says. “I had to figure out the culture, the values, the way everything works.”

People made all the difference, she said. At Syracuse and Maxwell, she said she easily found mentors like professors , and who offered moral support at critical moments, put American culture into context with her studies and encouraged her critical analysis.

One professor, , knew exactly what Zhang was facing. Ma had walked a similar path a decade earlier, coming from Nanjing University to study sociology in the U.S. Zhang says Ma told her, “‘The right support at the right moment changes everything. My door is always open.’”

Across campus, staff helped Zhang navigate systems she didn’t yet understand. The patience, she says, was everything.

“The faith they put in you—it’s like, ‘You’re going to do great, and you just need a little help and a little nudge to get you on the ramp,’” she says.

An Unconventional Path

With the encouragement of faculty, including math professor , Zhang pursued master’s degrees in sociology and applied statistics. The interdisciplinary combination raised eyebrows but proved transformative. While studying at Maxwell, she audited courses at the , chasing curiosity wherever it led.

“Maxwell encouraged students to branch out,” she says. “Every advisor, every mentor embraced that belief—to develop full-brain students and future leaders.”

After earning her degree in 2011, Zhang set out to build what she calls her own path. She joined Amazon as an entry-level financial analyst. Then she moved to an online travel company to study brand-building, then to Zynga, where she got her first taste of fast-paced Silicon Valley culture. Soon after came another opportunity, to join the “software as a service” (SaaS) industry.

Along the way, she earned another degree—a master of science in finance from the University of Illinois.

Then she did something that surprised even her colleagues: she left finance entirely.

Recognizing that she needed to understand the business from the inside out, Zhang spent three years in global sales strategy, traveling with top sales teams and learning how deals actually get made. It was unconventional for someone with her background, and exactly the kind of move she said Maxwell had trained her to make.

“I’m not building my resume,” she says. “I’m building my own path.”

Where you live affects how healthy you are. That idea sits at the center of Miriam Mutambudzi’s research—and behind the two-year project she led as the 2024–26 .

is an associate professor of public health in the . Her work explores how conditions like housing, employment and economic stability shape people’s health over their lifetimes.

For the Lender fellowship, she and a team of student fellows set out to examine housing as a structural determinant of health, reviewing the research evidence and engaging directly with community members to understand how this plays out in Syracuse.

Working in partnership with the University’s and the , the team reviewed research on housing and health, then engaged community members directly through the (TMR) series. The fellowship culminated when student fellows presented as panelists at a TMR session—offering their findings to the public as emerging experts in the field.

We spoke with Mutambudzi recently about the team’s work.

What did the community tell you that the data couldn’t?

Community voices from sessions like “The Conditions of Home: Health, Safety and Access” described how housing quality, environmental safety, neighborhood conditions and instability affect daily stress, food access and overall health and well-being in ways that do not show up in traditional datasets.

These conversations also revealed gaps in existing evidence, particularly around how local housing policies, service systems and lived experiences intersect in Syracuse—areas that would benefit from further research to better quantify these issues and understand their impact.

How did TMR become part of that work?

As the landscape for relevant research shifted in ways outside our control, it became clear that data analysis alone was insufficient to fully capture the lived realities of housing disparities in Syracuse. TMR was a natural fit, as the focus was on housing and provided an opportunity to incorporate community-engaged work in a meaningful way, one I don’t think we could have replicated any other way.

What role did the student fellows play?

They were genuine research partners, leading development of data briefings drawn from publicly available sources and peer-reviewed literature, then building presentations for the TMR sessions that framed topics for the roundtable’s participants.

Prior to each session, fellows met with panelists to learn about their lived experience in Syracuse and their work, using these conversations to develop informed moderator questions for the roundtable discussions. That process ensured that each session reflected both rigorous evidence and real community knowledge.

How has this project informed your ongoing research?

This work has helped me see how housing shapes health and everyday life beyond what quantitative data alone can fully capture. It has broadened my understanding of how housing, as a structural determinant, independently shapes health outcomes and survival. I look forward to bringing these community insights into that ongoing research.

What does this work mean for people living in Syracuse, and other areas like it?

The patterns we are seeing in Syracuse connect to broader research on how structural disparity in housing shape health and survival across communities. This work points to the need for both local action and research that can better quantify these impacts and inform policy and practice.

Student Fellows

The 2024–26 Lender student fellow team consists of:

• Tomiwa “Tommy” DaSilva ’26, a double major in public health and policy studies and citizenship and civic engagement in the Maxwell School
• Adara “Darla” Hobbs ’22, G’26, a graduate student in Pan-African studies in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and recipient of a certificate of advanced studies in public management and policy from the Maxwell School. She is an alumna of the communication and rhetorical studies program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts
• Jamea Candy Johnson ’25, G’26, a graduate student in public health in the Maxwell School and an alumna of the psychology program in A&S
• Sabrina Lussier ’26, a triple major in geography, citizenship and civic engagement, and environmental sustainability and policy in the Maxwell School
• Shreya Potluri ’27, an architecture major in the School of Architecture

Serena Williams made headlines this week with her return to professional tennis at age 44, entering the doubles draw at the HSBC Championships in London after nearly four years away from the sport. But beyond the fanfare, what does her comeback actually demand of her body?

Matthew Armstrong, assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science in the David B. Falk College of Sport, says the cardiovascular realities of competing at 44 are significant—and measurable.

The most concrete factor, Armstrong explains, is maximum heart rate (HR), which declines approximately 0.7 to 1 beat per minute per year—a rate that holds regardless of sex or training background. Over two-plus decades of a career, that adds up.

“A 20-year-old would be able to achieve a max HR about 24 BPM higher than a 44-year-old Serena,” Armstrong says. “That is a large delta that would make a difference.”

As for the reconditioning process itself, Armstrong says the fundamentals don’t change much at the elite level. “Realistically, the training is the same. It’s just hard work that needs to be done in order to get to a level that you can compete at.”

One key variable, he notes, is how active Williams remained during her hiatus. “If she has done very little training during her break then the comeback will be difficult—but if she has been training consistently, even though it would not be to a pro athlete standard, then this would make it easier.”

Elite athletes do carry certain cardiovascular advantages into later career stages—structural adaptations like enlarged chamber size and increased stroke volume that make the heart more efficient—but those advantages only go so far against the natural decline in aerobic capacity that comes with age.

With the HSBC Championships beginning June 8, Armstrong says the most fascinating question may be one that only time—and performance data—can answer: whether Williams’ speed, power and endurance on court today match what she brought to the game in the past.

Professor Armstrong is available for interview. If you’d like to connect with him, send written questions or learn more, email Daryl Lovell: dalovell@syr.edu.��

When Chie Sakakibara first traveled to an Iñupiaq community in Arctic Alaska as a graduate student, an elder gave her advice that would define her career.

“Never disappear,” she told her.

For generations, researchers had come to Indigenous lands, documented stories and environmental knowledge, and left—often without returning results or sustaining relationships. Community members asked Sakakibara to do something different: to document climate change from their perspective and to show that they were not simply victims of environmental disruption, but creative and resilient people adapting to change.

“I was honored, and I stayed,” Sakakibara says. “Placing yourself in a community means reciprocating and emphasizing their priorities, not just your own interests.”

More than two decades later, she is still returning.

Now an associate professor of geography and the environment in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Sakakibara has built her scholarship around long-term collaboration and Indigenous research sovereignty—the idea that communities themselves should guide how their knowledge is used, represented and shared. Another focus of her work: the interconnected survival of people, animals and environments in a rapidly changing Arctic.

“Chie’s work is a model of what engaged scholarship looks like at Maxwell,” says Shana Kushner Gadarian, associate dean for research and professor of political science. “By centering Indigenous voices and building lasting partnerships across the globe, she demonstrates that rigorous research and genuine community responsibility are not competing values—they are inseparable ones.”

Connecting Communities

Sakakibara’s current initiative, “Indigenous Northern Landscapes: Visual Repatriation and Climate Knowledge Exchange,” connects the Iñupiaq people of Arctic Alaska with the Ainu community of northern Japan to explore environmental memory, cultural preservation and climate adaptation.

Both communities have endured land dispossession and the suppression of traditional language and faith. Both have retained and revitalized Indigenous ways of being—the Iñupiat through their relationship with the bowhead whale, sea ice and tundra; the Ainu through kinship with the brown bear, salmon, rivers and forests of Hokkaido.

“Their voices are only getting stronger through connecting and building relationships with other Indigenous communities and their allies within and beyond academia,” says Sakakibara, a research affiliate for the East Asia Program in Maxwell’s Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs and a member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program and Center for Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Her project employs repeat photography alongside community-led ethnography, fieldwork, oral history, archival research and collaborative museum curation. It emphasizes Indigenous knowledge and collaboration and juxtaposes early 20th-century and contemporary images, revealing sea ice loss, coastal erosion and shifting subsistence patterns due to environmental transformation.

Working with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the project collaboratively produces environmental knowledge by interpreting these historical photographs with the Indigenous descendants of the communities where they originated.

Future work will involve storymapping, participatory digital storytelling and traveling museum curation bridging Syracuse, Arctic Alaska and Japan.

Challenging the Myth

A persistent misconception frames Indigenous cultures as unchanging and separate from the modern world. Sakakibara sees that stereotype as an obstacle to effective climate policy.

“When policymakers or scientists assume that Indigenous peoples are merely relics of the past, they fail to recognize that communities like the Iñupiat and Ainu actively observe, interpret and respond to environmental change,” she says. “That blocks opportunities to incorporate Indigenous expertise into climate solutions.”

Iñupiat hunters continuously adjust whaling routes in response to sea ice change. Ainu communities combine historical ecological knowledge with contemporary observations to protect salmon runs. These are dynamic systems of environmental monitoring refined over generations, not static traditions.

Rather than separating Western science from Indigenous knowledge systems, Sakakibara argues the two must be in conversation, especially as policymakers confront accelerating climate disruption. Climate change, she notes, is not solely a scientific challenge but a cultural and political one.

“Climate disruption is among the most consequential challenges of our time, with implications that span policy, governance, culture and human well-being,” says Maxwell Dean David M. Van Slyke. “Our students benefit from the wide-ranging expertise and experiences that Professor Sakakibara and colleagues provide.”

Students as Research Partners

Sakakibara brings her knowledge back to Syracuse—into classrooms, workshops and partnerships that give students direct exposure to the communities and questions at the center of her work.

In July 2024, Sakakibara partnered with public history experts from

StoryCollab to facilitate a on campus with Ainu collaborators. That same year, Sakakibara brought two Haudenosaunee undergraduate students to Japan to participate in workshops with Ainu community members, contributing to mapping projects and oral history initiatives conducted across English, Japanese and Ainu.

One of those students, Katsitsatekanoniahkwa Destiny Lazore ’26, is a member of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and a 2025 Udall Scholar in Tribal Public Policy. Hearing the stories of  Ainu community members resonated in a personal way.

“It reminded me of what my own ancestors experienced, the struggle to protect culture, revitalize language and reclaim sovereignty,” says Lazore. “There was something powerful in recognizing that shared desire: the simple but profound wish to safeguard your people, your traditions and your future for the next generations to come.”

Rooted in Relationships

Sakakibara’s  project has cultivated partnerships with major institutions including the Penn Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Yale Peabody Museum, the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan and the Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University.

“The core goals—centering Indigenous knowledge, documenting environmental change and supporting cultural sovereignty—remain active and impactful,” Sakakibara says, adding that the elder’s advice—never disappear—remains central to her approach. “Research is about relationships. And relationships require responsibility.”

Story by Catherine Scott