Bio

I was born in Tokyo, but spent a large part of my childhood within the Japanese communities of Singapore, Kuwait and England before returning to Japan at the age of 15. That makes me a typical Third Culture Kid (or kikokushijo, as we are called in Japan). After completing high school in Tokyo, I did an undergraduate degree in law at Sophia University, and worked in the international office of CBS/Sony, now known as Sony Music Entertainment.

In my mid-20s, I relocated to New York City with aspirations to develop a career in music journalism. However, during my time there, I stumbled upon the field of linguistics — a discipline I quickly realized I was meant to pursue. I completed a conversion master’s at Columbia University followed by a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University.

In 1999, I joined the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer in the phonetics and phonology of language acquisition. Since arriving in Edinburgh, my life has settled into a more predictable trajectory, deviating significantly less from the path I’ve embraced. I was promoted to Reader in 2007 and to Professor in 2019.