Katherine Matsuura is a librarian for the Japan Digital Resource Center of the Fung Library, where she plays a key role in working with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University Library, and the Japanese Studies community to further develop support for digital scholarship and research. In today’s increasingly networked environment, her passion for digital scholarship is rooted in the collaboration and partnerships that emerge when working on a project, and she is always interested in ways of supporting the expanding institutional and global connections of today’s research communities.
Prior to Harvard, Kathi was at Yale University, working on a doctoral degree in History, where her dissertation focuses on the Shiwaku Islands of the Seto Inland Sea and the study of its former pirates and nomadic fisher communities. Through the lens of these people, she examines maritime networks, fishing wars, naval development, as well as the intersection of the ocean with local, regional, and national narratives of history in the early modern period (17th-19th centuries). Kathi also holds an MSLS in Information and Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in East Asian Studies from Duke University, and a BA from Grinnell College, where she first began her study of Japan.