University of the Ryukyus
On 25 December 2017 Noll was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan. As a JSPS fellow, in June 2018 he delivered invited lectures on shamanism at the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, the National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU) in Osaka, and at the Research Institute of Islands and Sustainability at the University of the Ryukyus in Naha, Okinawa. Together with anthropologist Ippei Shimamura, he also conducted fieldwork among the indigenous female "yuta " (mediums/shamans in Ryukyuan religion) on Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands and the ascetic monastic "yamabushi" / "shugenja" community on Mount Omine in Nara Prefecture who practice the form of Esoteric Buddhism known as Shugendo. While at the Ominesan-ji temple they observed a "goma" fire ritual involving the ritual invocation of Fudō Myōō 不動明王.