Ms. Naomi Funahashi

Manager of the Reischauer Scholars Program
Stanford University
Stanford, California

Naomi Funahashi was born in Tokyo to a Japanese father and a half-Japanese and half-American mother, and grew up moving between the United States and Japan. Naomi has resided in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2000, joining the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University in 2005. She currently serves as Manager of the Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP) and Teacher Professional Development for SPICE.

The RSP is an online course on Japan and U.S.-Japan relations for high school students in the United States. Named in honor of former Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, the RSP annually selects 25-30 talented high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from throughout the United States to engage in an intensive study of Japan. Each cohort participates in the online course from February to June, learning about Japanese history, literature, religion, art, politics, economics, and contemporary society, with a special focus on the U.S.-Japan relationship. As her students engage with diplomats, scholars, experts, and peers from across the United States and Japan, Naomi aims to facilitate the deepening of their cross-cultural understanding and broadening of their global perspectives.

In 2008, the Asia Society in New York CIty awarded the 2007 Goldman Sachs Foundation Media and Technology Prize to the Reischauer Scholars Program. Naomi has taught over 300 students in the RSP from 35 U.S. states and territories.

Naomi’s academic interests lie in global education, online pedagogy, teacher professional development, and curriculum design. She attended high school at the American School in Japan, and received her Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Brown University as a way to seek a deeper understanding of the complex connections between the countries of her heritage. Naomi received her teaching credential in secondary-level social science from San Francisco State University, and her Ed.M. in Global Studies in Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining SPICE in 2005, she was a project coordinator at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.

She has authored or co-authored the following curriculum units for SPICE: Storytelling of Indigenous Peoples in the United States, Immigration to the United States, Along the Silk Road, Central Asia: Between Peril and Promise, and Sadako’s Paper Cranes and Lessons of Peace.

Naomi has presented teacher seminars nationally at Teachers College, Columbia University, the annual Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning Conference, the National Council for the Social Studies and California Council for the Social Studies annual conferences, and other venues. She has also presented teacher seminars internationally for the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia, and for the European Council of International Schools in France, Portugal, and the Netherlands.