Lauren Richardson is a Lecturer in the Department of International Relations.  She was was formerly Director of Studies and Lecturer in the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the ANU (2018-2020) and Director of the ANU Japan Institute (2020-2022). Prior to that Dr Richardson taught Northeast Asian Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the role of non-state actors in shaping diplomatic interactions in Northeast Asia, particularly Japan-Korea relations. Her publications have focused on the South Korean anti-nuclear movement; the redress campaign for North Korean atomic bomb victims; the role of Buddhists in Sino-Japanese rapprochement (with G A. Scott);Japan’s evolving defence posture; and the ascension of “comfort women” in South Korean memory of Japanese imperialism and North Korean A-bomb victims. She is currently completing a book manuscript provisionally entitled Reshaping Japan-Korea Relations: Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Politics of Redress.

Dr Richardson obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Asian Studies from Monash University and spent several years studying Japanese and Korean language as part of these programs. She then completed a Master’s in Political Science at Keio University in Tokyo, where she wrote a dissertation in Japanese on the “history problems” in Japan-ROK relations. Her PhD at ANU entailed one year of field work in both Japan and South Korea. She has been a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Keio University, and the Australian War College. She has been a recipient of the Prime Minister’s Australia-Asia Award (2011), and a participant in the US-Korea NextGen Scholars Program (2015-16) and the German Marshall Fund’s Young Strategist Forum (2019). She is currently a member of the Australian Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (AUS-CSCAP) and a Board Member of the ANU Korea Institute and the ANU Japan Institute. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of East Asian Affairs and East Asia Forum.

Japan-Korea peninsula relations;  state-society relations; transnational social movements; victim redress; Asia-Pacific security