SPDR Speaker Series

SPDR speaker series will host scholars, experts, and professionals from across the security, policy, and diplomacy world for virtual and in-person sessions at the University of Washington. Speaker events will cover a variety of topics and will center on providing students, researchers, and professionals with insight into current events and methodologies for developing and implementing impactful policy.

Positioning Japan in Cybersecurity Trajectories

October 24, 2025 | 3:00 – 4:30 PM (Pacific) | Thomson Hall 317

Sponsored through a grant from the United States-Japan Foundation

Contact organizer for information or to request seating (smp1@uw.edu)

Welcome and Introductions – Saadia Pekannen

Saadia M. Pekkanen is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor of International Studies, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is Founding Director of the Space Law, Data, and Policy Program (SPACE LDP, Law School); and the Founding Director of the Program on Strategy, Policy, and Diplomacy Research (SPDR, Jackson School). She works at the intersection of international relations and international law, specializing in the commercial, legal, and security policies shaping outer space affairs.

Moderator and Chair – Steven Vogel

Steven K. Vogel is Director of the Political Economy Program, the Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies, and a Professor of Political Science and Political Economy at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in the political economy of the advanced industrialized nations, especially Japan. He is the author of Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (2018); Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism (2006); and Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (1996).

“Overview of Foreign and Defense Policies in Japan”, Crystal Pryor

Dr. Crystal Pryor is Managing Director of TradeStrategic LLC, a Seattle-based research and consulting firm specializing in strategic trade and economic security. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Research (CPR), University at Albany, SUNY, leading research on dual-use technology policy and export controls in Asia and globally. Dr. Pryor previously held a postdoctoral fellowship in the U.S.-Japan Program at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center. Her expertise includes Japan’s security policy, dual-use technologies, and nonproliferation, with both U.S. government and commercial consulting experience.

“Overview of Cybersecurity around the World”, Jessica L. Beyer
Jessica L. Beyer is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and a lead of the Jackson School’s Cybersecurity Initiative. Dr. Beyer teaches cybersecurity politics courses in the Jackson School and supervises student research through the Cybersecurity Initiative and Global Research Groups. Dr. Beyer’s research focuses on international technology politics, online communities and politics, and dis/misinformation.

“Japan in Cyber Security”, Benjamin Bartlett

Dr. Benjamin Bartlett is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and an affiliate of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. His research interests include comparative cybersecurity policy, cybersecurity in East Asia, the role of cybersecurity in alliances, andinternational cooperation on cybersecurity capacity building.He has published in Journal of Cyber Policy,Asia Policy, The Pacific Review, and in the Oxford Handbook of Japanese Politics.He is also a 2022 recipient of an NEH Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan.