Akihiro Iwashita focuses on border studies and Russian foreign policy towards China and Japan. His published work includes A 4,000 Kilometer Journey Along the Sino-Russian Border (SRC, 2004), Japan’s Border Issues: Pitfalls and Perspectives (Routledge, 2016), and Geo-politics in Northeast Asia (Routledge, 2016). He spent 2007–2008 as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and published New Geopolitics and the Rediscovery of the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Reshaping “Northeast Asia” beyond the Border (Brookings Institution, 2010). Throughout his career, he has been committed to supporting the global border studies community, founding the Japan International Border Studies Network in 2011, organizing the 12th Border Regions in Transition Conference (Fukuoka and Pusan, 2012) and serving as the president of the Association for Borderlands Studies (2015–2016). He has also organized and led numerous tours of contested Eurasian border areas, laying foundations for dispute settlement and mutual understanding. Iwashita was a recipient of the Osaragi Jiro Prize for Commentary (Asahi Shimbun, 2006), JSPS Prize (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2007), and Milefsky Award (IBRU, 2019).