The GW Elliott School of International Affairs announced its choice for the Japan-U.S. relations chair Thursday at the National Press Club after a worldwide search.

The new chairman, Mike M. Mochizuki, is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Studies Program, a private organization focusing on East-Asian studies. He is a renowned specialist on both Japanese politics and foreign policy, as well as U.S.-Japan relations and East Asian security matters. He has been a faculty member at both the University of Southern California and Yale University and earlier served as a co-director for the RAND Corporation’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy.

GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg lauded Mochizuki’s qualifications in a recent press release.

“We are very pleased to have Dr. Mochizuki come to GW,” Trachtenberg wrote. “In him, we have someone who will make a notable contribution to our students, to our East-Asian studies program.and to improving U.S.-Japan relations.”

Mochizuki was born in Kanazawa, Japan, and is now a U.S. citizen. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at Brown University and received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1982. He is also the author of several published works, the latest of which is a collection of essays entitled “Toward a True Alliance: Restructuring U.S.-Japan Security Relations.”

Mochizuki’s position was created last December in memory of GW’s Distinguished Professor of East-Asian studies and former Secretary of State for East Asia, Gaston Sigur. A $1 million donation from 46 leading Japanese corporations and $1 million in matching funds from the University made the creation of the chair possible, Trachtenberg wrote.

Former GW president Lloyd Elliott also made a $1 million gift to the Japanese program in the Elliott School, which bears his name.