Laney Bahan was born and raised in California, but moved her life to Tokyo, Japan for three years, and later lived in the United Kingdom for another three years. She received her BA in Asian Studies with a minor in Political Science from Temple University Japan in 2019, and then an MPhil in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2022. Her research interests include the politics of memory, particularly post-World War II memory, in East Asia. She is most interested in the power of and role played by education in the crafting of identity in post-war Japan, and looks forward to diving into this topic while at Yale. Since 2020, Laney has worked in production and editorial capacities for the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus and other larger publishers, but she is very excited to step back into academia. In her free time (if there were to be any) you might find her bouldering with friends, reading everything Ursula K. Le Guin has ever written, or enjoying a coffee in the park.