Rob Crawford

History of Japan, focusing on Kagoshima

Advisor: Associate Professor Lim Beng Choo

E-mail: e0321209@u.nus.edu

Rob Crawford is a part time PhD candidate working on the transformation of Kagoshima prefecture during the Meiji Restoration. Rob has been living or working in Japan for most of his professional life, arriving in the country as an English teacher in 1995 and now traveling backwards and forwards between Singapore and Japan with his investment company. His first contact with Japan was with Kagoshima, his wife is from the prefecture and he and his family often spend their summers down in the Kagoshima countryside. He graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in History and NUS with a MA, and the NUS PhD course has been a chance for him to satisfy his long-term desire to get back into the subject and study more of the history of his favorite part of Japan.