Non Resident Scholars/Visiting Fellows

Mr. Sam Baron joined Sasakawa USA as a Non-Resident Scholar for the US-Japan NEXT Alliance Initiative in June 2022. His primary focus is providing research and analysis on U.S.-Japan relations coordination vis-à-vis Southeast Asia. Alongside his contributions to the NEXT Alliance Initiative, Sam is currently a Visiting Researcher with the Research Center for Sustainable Peace (RCSP) at the University of Tokyo.

His expertise is in U.S. foreign policy toward Southeast Asia, specifically Myanmar, and he is currently researching how the Japanese government and private sector have adjusted their engagement and investment strategies with Myanmar in the aftermath of the country’s coup d’etat in February 2021. Prior to his research work at the University of Tokyo, Sam was a political risk analyst with the Southeast Asia practice of The Asia Group, an international strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C.
Sam served as a Human Rights Intern in 2019 with the Myanmar Country Team of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (based in Bangkok, Thailand), where he helped spearhead the implementation of an inter-agency ‘early-warning’ system to aid in the prevention of armed conflict across Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states. He was also a Policy Intern at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in 2018.

Mr. Baron earned his M.Phil in International Relations with distinction from the University of Cambridge (St. John’s College) and received his B.A. in Political Science and Asian Studies from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Publications
Will the U.S. Look to Japan to Step  Up its Economic Game in Southeast Asia?
New US-Japan Supply Chain Task Force Can Enhance Economic Cooperation in Southeast Asia
The ASEAN-Japan Centre can be a Model for Washington’s New ‘ASEAN Center’