Board & Staff

Naomi Ostwald Kawamura is the Executive Director of Densho. Born and raised in San Diego, California, Naomi holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, a Master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly research focuses on cultural memory practices in Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities and she has contributed as  a guest editor and author in peer-reviewed journals and editions. Prior to Densho, Naomi was the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, a Japanese Canadian organization based in British Columbia. She has held leadership positions at the San Diego History Center, the Museum Education Roundtable, and BAVC Media, among others.

Tom Ikeda is the Founding Executive Director of Densho and currently acting as a Senior Advisor. Tom is a sansei (third generation Japanese American) who was born and raised in Seattle. Tom’s parents and grandparents were incarcerated during World War II at Minidoka, Idaho. In addition to leading the organization over the last 24 years, Tom has conducted more than 250 video-recorded, oral history interviews with Japanese Americans. Prior to working at Densho, Tom was a General Manager at Microsoft Corporation in the Multimedia Publishing Group. Tom has received numerous awards for his community and historical contributions, including the Humanities Washington Award for outstanding achievement in the public humanities, the National JACL Japanese American of the Biennium Award, the Microsoft Alumni Integral Fellows Award, the Japanese American National Museum Founder’s Award, and the Robert Gray Medal from the Washington State Historical Society.

Sara graduated from Indiana State University with a BS in History and from University of Washington with a Masters in Library and Information Science. She moved to the Seattle area in 2010 and loves her adopted home. Sara knew almost nothing about Japanese American incarceration upon joining Densho as an intern in 2015. Now she hopes to help spread awareness to the wider public with her work on the Densho Digital Repository.  Before joining the staff at Densho, she interned with several other digital archives, including Wabash Valley Visions and Voices, The Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library, The South Asian American Digital Archive, and The Early Seattle Theatre History Project.

Caitlin Oiye Coon is a yonsei who was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. Her interest in the incarceration stems from her paternal family’s experiences at Tule Lake incarceration camp. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in History. She also holds an MA in History/Archives and Records Management from Western Washington University and and MLIS from San Jose State University. Caitlin has over 10 years of experience working with information and content management systems. At Densho she developed and currently manages their digitization program, helped establish archival best practices, and created training curriculum for partner organizations.

Though trained as a social scientist, Geoff has three decades of experience developing technology and information management strategies for a variety of for-profit and non-profit ventures, ranging from small think-tanks and startups to a large global health NGO, the Department of State, the Adobe Corporation and his Holiness the Dalai Lama. A hapa yonsei whose mother was born at Tule Lake, Geoff was raised in the Washington, DC metro area, and holds a BA in Asian Studies from the University of Virginia and an MS in Information Management from the University of Washington. His interests range from information science to political thought in 19th century Japan, and—when he is not chained to a computer —Geoff enjoys engaging in ill-conceived mountain-biking expeditions.

Christen holds a Master of Library and Information Studies degree from The University of Alabama and a Museum Studies certificate from the University of Washington. She earned her undergraduate degree in anthropology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Christen followed Densho’s work for several years before she relocated to Seattle and excitedly applied for a position working with Densho’s archival collections. She is honored to support Densho in their mission to preserve and share history of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Dana is a Yonsei who was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but grew up in Seattle. She first learned about the incarceration in part from her maternal and paternal grandparents who were incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka camps during World War II. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in American Ethnic Studies and has worked for Densho ever since. She oversees day-to-day operations and also video records and processes Densho’s oral history interviews.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Cameron Johnson received a B.A. in Rhetoric and Anthropology at U.C Berkeley and then went to work in cultural heritage resource management with the National Park Service. It is in his position at the NPS’ Minidoka National Historic Site where he gained first hand experience with primary source materials of the Japanese American incarceration story. With a lifelong fascination with technology and history, Cameron is professionally trained as both an archivist and a tech specialist. Having been affiliated with Densho since 2017, he is in the latter stages of a PhD program in Sociocultural Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley where his research focuses on state-based constructions of race and identity through archival records. Specifically, the topic of his dissertation is centered around the vast amount of banned musical compositions aggregated by South Africa’s National Party during their regime of Apartheid. With a deep knowledge of information systems, music making as social practice, and a deep commitment to ethically grounded ethnographic research methodologies, he is now Densho’s Technical Project Manager, a role in which his seemingly disparate passions for technological infrastructure and cultural memory have found a perfect home.

Geoffrey graduated from California State University Fresno with a BA in Linguistics and minors in Music and Japanese, and a year’s study at Waseda University in Tokyo. He then joined the JET Program and taught English in Kawai-cho, Nara Prefecture, following that with a Masters in Library & Information Studies from the University of California Los Angeles. Because working in a library would be too obvious, he then became a web developer, cutting his teeth in the computer games industry before moving to the Japanese American National Museum, where he was the primary software developer for all the Museum’s web sites including DiscoverNikkei.org. His first computer was a TRS-80 Model I.

Philip graduated from Roger Williams University with a BA in History and minors in East Asian Studies and Philosophy, and was working for the Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle before coming to Densho. He has a passion for both historical preservation and technology and is happiest when either conducting historical research or when tinkering with computer hardware. Philip’s grandparents were incarcerated during World War II at Manzanar and Tule Lake, and he is thrilled and humbled to be a part of Densho.

Will is a graduate student in the University of Washington’s Master of Information and Library Science program. Originally from Wisconsin, Will graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Communication Arts and French before moving to Seattle. As a Project Archivist, Will is working to digitize, process and organize the research materials of Loni Ding, a pioneering Japanese American documentarian. Will is particularly passionate about open access and is proud to play a part in Densho’s preservation of the history of Japanese Americans.

Micah holds a Master’s degree in Museology (Museum Studies) from the University of Washington. She graduated from Willamette University with a B.A. in history. Her studies at Willamette focused on Japanese American history, culminating in a thesis on the Nikkei community around Salem, Oregon. Before moving to Seattle to attend UW, Micah worked at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland, Oregon as a Digitization Specialist funded by an Oregon Heritage Grant. Her work there was digitizing part of ONLC’s collection for Densho’s Digital Repository. The stories and histories of Japanese Americans are what drew Micah to a History degree, and she wants to share that same inspiration with others.

Dina holds a Master’s degree in Latin-American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison focusing on the intersection of labor and race, and a graduate certificate in Archival Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A third generation Seattleite, Dina has worked at a number of local repositories including UW Special Collections, MOHAI, and the King County archives. She is excited and honored to be part of the important work being done at Densho preserve and share a story that is so essential to the understanding of the history of this area.

Kristi is the child of a Sansei and Shin-Issei, born and raised in the Seattle area. Her paternal grandparents were incarcerated at Manzanar and Minidoka, and instilled the importance of nido to nai yoni, “let it not happen again.” She was introduced to Densho during her time as a member of the 2013 court of the Japanese Queen Scholarship Organization of Washington. Kristi is a graduate of Seattle University with a degree in Environmental Studies and Biology, with a minor in Political Science. She previously worked as the Digital Communications Manager for Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters. At Densho, Kristi helps with digital marketing, communications, and fundraising.

Brian Niiya is a Sansei born and raised in Southern California to Nisei parents who were born and raised in Hawai’i. His maternal grandfather was one of the small number of Japanese Americans from Hawai’i who were interned, and his mother’s family went to Japan on an exchange ship during the war. Brian is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College and holds an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA. His professional life has been dedicated to Japanese American public history and information management, having held various positions with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i that have involved managing collections, curating exhibitions, developing public programs, and producing videos, books, and websites. He has published many articles on Japanese American history in a variety of academic and mainstream publications and is the editor of the online Densho Encyclopedia, which draws on his prior Encyclopedia of Japanese American History, published in 1993 with a second edition in 2000.

Jennifer Noji is a Yonsei who was born in Norway, grew up in New Jersey, and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. As the granddaughter of Gila River and Minidoka concentration camp survivors, she has dedicated much of her academic, professional, and personal life to learning and teaching about the WWII incarceration and other historical injustices. Jennifer holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Communications from Rutgers University, an M.A. from UCLA, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Asian American Studies at UCLA. Her research explores how literature reckons with US legacies of racial and colonial violence, and she teaches undergraduate courses on forced incarceration, displacement, critical race theory, and human rights, among other topics. She has published articles on memory and political violence in various academic journals and volumes. In addition to her academic work, Jennifer has years of experience working in communications and fundraising, both with non-profits and community organizations. At Densho she works in strategic communications, helping with our development, marketing, and education work, and she manages the Digital Collection of Japanese American Incarceration Films project.

Naoko was born in Kobe, Seattle’s sister city, and raised in Kyoto, Japan. She graduated from Kobe College with a BA in English and worked in Osaka before she came to the U.S. in 1987. She manages Densho’s fundraising events, processes financial transactions and reports, and translates materials.

Nina is a yonsei who grew up in Phoenix but has lived in Seattle long enough to call it home. She is a graduate of Seattle University with a degree in English and Philosophy, and has worked in a variety of community-building and youth development programs in addition to her work at Densho. Her family was not subject to incarceration during WWII because they lived outside the West Coast “exclusion zone,” but Nina’s great-grandfather was arrested and detained by the FBI. Nina helps to manage Densho’s social media, blog, press relations, and community outreach.

Virginia learned of Densho many years ago, when her mother-in-law was interviewed about her life and her family’s WWII incarceration experience at Minidoka and Crystal City. She began working at Densho not long after that. Most comfortable in the seat of the listener, Virginia manages the Oral History program at Densho, a role that utilizes her background in social sciences and her affinity for scheduling challenges, as she coordinates and participates in all aspects of the interviewing process. She also oversees the administration of all of Densho’s grants, which supply funding assistance to most of Densho’s programs. She holds degrees in Sign Language Studies from Ohlone College and Cultural Anthropology from UC Santa Barbara.

Courtney Wai (she/her) is the Education and Public Programs Manager at Densho. Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Courtney’s identity as a young Asian American Pacific Islander woman was shaped by educators and family who shared counter-narratives centered on the AAPI experience. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Scripps College and a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Courtney began her career as a middle school English Language Arts teacher in the Rio Grande Valley and later taught English as a Second Language in San Antonio ISD. Her dedication to social justice education has driven her work with Teach For America, the City of San Antonio Office of Equity, City Year San Antonio, and Relay Graduate School of Education. Before joining Densho, she was a Professional Learning Facilitator with Learning for Justice, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and served as a Consulting Instructor and Southern Regional Manager for The Asian American Education Project.

At Densho, Courtney continues her commitment to fostering inclusive spaces and amplifying underrepresented histories through education and public programming.

Kathryn is a graduate student at the University of Washington pursuing a Master’s in Information and Library Science (MLIS). Before this program, she wrote her first MA thesis on American immigration policy during the Holocaust, so she is familiar with the American attitude of that time about determining policies in the name of national security but are now acts that we recognize as prejudice. She learned about Densho through Caitlin Oiye Coon, Densho’s Archives Director, who was a guest speaker in one of her MLIS courses. Kathryn appreciates the work Densho does to preserve first-hand accounts of marginalized history and thinks hearing directly from the people who were impacted is one of the best ways to memorialize them and show the impact, not only of prejudice, but also of resistance. 

Micaela Duran is a current graduate student in the University of Washington’s Master of Library and Information Science program. She holds a BA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology from Colby College, where she developed a critical understanding of power, identity-making, and collective memory.

Her previous experience in equity-based archival work led her to Densho, where she serves as a Digital Archives Intern in partnership with the University of Washington and the Mellon Foundation. In this role, she is digitizing, processing, and describing collection materials. Through her work, she is committed to ethical stewardship and fostering community-driven approaches to archival preservation.