Emilie Takayama is the Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History. Her research has focused on the cultural history of the body and the growth of the beauty industry in East Asia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is interested in the strategies and mentalities of the first generation of Japanese beauty entrepreneurs and medical professionals, and how they constructed the cultural underpinnings of what eventually became a vibrant beauty industry that served Japan and its conquered territories in East Asia before the Pacific War. She is now researching the history of female entrepreneurship in Japan.
Dr. Takayama received her Ph.D and M.A. in history from Northwestern University. She also holds an M.A. in international relations from Seoul National University and a B.A. in political science from Sophia University in Japan.
