Md Nasrudin Md Akhir

Md Nasrudin Md Akhir is an Associate Professor at the Japan Studies Program (JSP), Department of Fast Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UM. He specializes in international relations of Japan and East Asia, focusing on security, foreign policy and political economy. As a pioneer academic staff at the JSP, he has been solely responsible for developing the JSP in the University of Malaya, established in the 1993/1994 academic session. Prior to joining Universiti Malaysia, he served as a lecturer at the Universiti Teknologi MARA and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He was the coordinator of the Japan Studies Program from 1994 to 2000 and appointed Head of the Department of East Asian Studies from 2005-2010 and went on to become the Deputy Dean (Research and Development) of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in early 2010. Furthermore, he was appointed to lead the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI) as Executive Director from 2010-2015 which is responsible for linking and strengthening higher education between Asia and Europe under the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) framework. He was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), Kyungnam University, ROK in 1997; a visiting fellow at the Australian National University in 2001; a visiting fellow at Keio University, Japan in 1997 and 2002 respectively; visiting professor at Rikkyo University, Japan in 2013 as well as a non-resident Senior Fellow of Research Centre for Asian Studies (RCAS), Hainan Normal University, China from 2022-present.

He is the cofounder of MAJAS and was elected to the position of Secretary General since its establishment in 1998 and held the position until 2012 before becoming an advisor to MAJAS until present. He is also one of the co-founders of Japanese Studies Association in ASEAN (JSA-ASEAN) established in Singapore and has held the position of Steering Committee since its inception in 2005 until present. He was also the founder and Head of MJRC since its establishment in 2012 until February 2021. He received several international accolades in recognition of his academic and leadership contributions, the most distinguished recognition was when he was conferred the Order of Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Emperor of Japan and the government of Japan in 2021.