Speakers

Phyllis Genther Yoshida is the Fellow for Energy and Technology at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA. Prior to joining Sasakawa, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia, Europe, and the Americas at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), coordinating bilateral relationships and serving as the Lead Shepherd of APEC’s Energy Working Group. She also served as DOE’s Director of the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, a government-industry cooperative research partnership.

Dr. Yoshida has written extensively on Japanese and international science, technology, and energy issues. She also has held policy and research positions over her career at the U.S. House of Representatives, the Japan Economic Institute, George Mason University and the U.S. Department of Commerce. As Director of the Department of Commerce’s Asia-Pacific Technology Program, she received the Commerce Department’s Gold Medal for expanding U.S. access to foreign science and technology and Silver Medal for work creating the International Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Partnership.

She received her B.A. from Carleton College, and M.A. and Ph.D. from the George Washington University. She was the first recipient of Japan’s GARIOA/Fulbright Fellowship, under which she studied in 1983-1984 at the University of Tokyo and conducted research on Japan’s automobile industry.