Takara Tsuzaki is a specialist in public relations, social policy research and evaluation. She has worked as researcher, consultant and evaluator for 15 years in the private, public, academic and not-for-profit sectors in Japan and the United States. Working extensively in the fields of international development, community and citizens' engagement, economic development, social investment and medical education, Takara has obtained extensive experiences in the design and implementation of policy research and program evaluations – especially culturally sensitive, interdisciplinary and complex studies. Her recent evaluation and research projects include evaluation and policy research on the newly launched rural/remote/island medicine training program in Japan, development of monitoring and evaluation framework in social investment projects in Asia, co-designing evaluation for organizational capacity building and conflict resolution, and redefining religion-based and culturally sensitive indicators in Japanese.

Takara is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. Program in Interdisciplinary Evaluation at Western Michigan University and pursuing her research in evaluation theories from both Western and Eastern philosophies, socio-cultural and language translatability issues in evaluation, notions of credibility and rigor in evaluation, and evaluative thinking in education. Her academic qualifications include MSc. in Non-governmental Organisation Management, Social Policy at London School of Economics and Political Science (2006) and B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies at Macalester College (2000).

Takara has a passion for incorporating inquiry-focused dialogues in research and evaluation to maximize evaluation use, and a strong personal commitment to all facets of social and cultural values in evaluation. She has lived and worked in India, Nepal, Switzerland, UK and the USA, and fluent in Japanese and English.