Kristi Govella

Dr. Kristi Govella (クリスティ・ゴヴェラ) is the inaugural Director of the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs and an Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She specializes in the intersection of economics, security, and governance in international relations, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region and Japan. Dr. Govella’s research has examined topics such as economic statecraft, trade, investment, government-business relations, regional institutional architecture, military alliances, and the governance of the global commons. She has published over 30 articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces, and she is the co-editor of two books, Linking Trade and Security: Evolving Institutions and Strategies in Asia, Europe, and the United States (2013) and Responding to a Resurgent Russia: Russian Policy and Responses from the European Union and the United States (2012). She also serves as an Adjunct Fellow at the East-West Center and Pacific Forum and as Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Asia Policy. Dr. Govella was previously Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Asia Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, and an Associate Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. She has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Political Science and Japanese from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is of Filipino and Italian descent and is professionally proficient in Japanese.