She received her B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Keio University, and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. Her research interests include comparative political economy of advanced industrial countries, the varieties of capitalism and welfare states, gender equality, and contemporary Japanese politics. She is the author of Welfare Capitalism in Postwar Japan (Cambridge Series on Comparative Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2008), which won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. Her articles have been published in numerous journals, including World Politics, Social Politics, Asian Survey, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Social Policy and Administration, and Social Science Japan Journal, as well as chapters in edited volumes.