Beverley Yamamoto

Beverley Yamamoto is the Chair holder for the Osaka University UNESCO Chair in Global Health and Education. She has been a member of faculty at Osaka University in the Graduate School of Human Sciences since 2006 where she is currently a professor of Critical Studies in Education for Transformation in the newly established Department of Kyosei Studies (Critical studies in coexistence, symbiosis and conviviality). She is also the Director of the Human Sciences International Undergraduate Programme and Deputy Director of the International College.

Beverley gained a PhD in East Asian Studies from the University of Sheffield in UK in 2000 for a thesis employing a gender studies approach to investigating the issues of teenage pregnancy, abortion and motherhood in Japan. She has continued to work on issues of youth sexual and reproductive health, as well as gender and gender equity, inclusion, diversity and the educational success of those on the social periphery.

Since 2013, Beverley has also been working as a patient advocate in the rare disease space. She is executive board member of two patient advocacy organizations, one Japan based and the other global, but registered in the US. This activity has created a new research agenda around patient/public centred initiatives and patient advocacy. Beverley has been involved in an on-going international collaboration to create tools and an evidence base for patient involvement as authors in peer reviewed publications and plain language summaries. She is currently involved in two projects concerning patient involvement in the medical research process mediated by IT platforms. It is in this context that Beverley has had an on-going research collaboration with HeLEX since 2016.