Mie Oba is Professor at Kanagawa University. She obtained her Master's and PhD in Advanced Social and International Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. Her major is International Relations and the politics in East Asia and Asia-Pacific. She specialises in the development of regionalism in this region as well as theories of regional integration and regionalism. She has written several articles and books, including 'Further development of Asian regionalism: institutional hedging in an uncertain era' (Journal of Contemporary East Asian Studies, 2019). She received the 21st Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize from the Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Foundation (2005), the 6th Okita Commemorative Award for Policy Research from the National Institute for Research Advancement (2005) and the 11th Nakasone Yasuhiro Incentive Award (2015) .