Two years ago, I sat in front of a blank Google Doc for my Laidlaw Scholars application, more confused than ever about what I wanted to do. I loved biology. If I had the time, I could spend all day in front of a microscope looking at the anatomy of rice roots. But I also cared deeply about the community of farmers back home in Japan, where farms continue to close without successors and farmers increasingly struggle with the effects of climate change. Biology could make an impact, but scientific progress often seemed too slow compared with the problems farmers were already facing.
I did not know how to reconcile these interests into a career. I saw Laidlaw as an opportunity to explore the more society-oriented work that I had always felt was necessary, both for my community and for myself, but had never had the chance to fully pursue. Two years later, I still do not know what my ideal or “most impactful” career looks like. But through Laidlaw, I have learned to care less about defining my individual impact and more about committing myself to the issue. That is something I will take with me wherever I end up.
One of the moments that shifted my thinking came during a Laidlaw class on vision-based leadership. I still remember my surprise when Dr. Nurkin told us that we might never see the problems we care about solved in our lifetimes. What matters is contributing to systemic change, even when it takes years or generations, so that those who come after us can live better lives. Until then, I had thought about agricultural sustainability largely in terms of what I could accomplish. I had never seriously considered working toward a future I might not personally see.
Over my two Laidlaw summers, I came to understand that lesson more deeply. The more I learned about agriculture, the more impossible the problem seemed to “solve.” At the same time, I began to see that envisioning a better system, and understanding the many people and institutions needed to build it, could itself be a starting point.
During my first summer, I worked on a Data+ project analyzing grant records from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to understand how funding mechanisms influence the research topics that receive support. I entered the project expecting my biggest takeaway to be technical, particularly learning to use machine-learning methods. Instead, I discovered a part of agriculture that has enormous influence but often remains invisible: the relationship between scientific research, funding, and policy.
Our analysis highlighted the importance of both innovation-driven and needs-driven research, but it also made me think about the alignment required among scientists, policymakers, and the communities their decisions ultimately affect. Until then, I had viewed my biology research and my interest in agricultural policy as belonging to two separate worlds. The project helped me see that neither can address agricultural challenges alone but need to be connected by a shared vision.
I also became close with two teammates whose expertise and backgrounds were completely different from mine and whom I now consider lifelong comrades. Working together taught me that collaboration does not require identical motivations or expertise. People can approach a problem from very different directions and still move toward the same goal.
For my Leadership-in-Action summer, I wanted to return home to Kawasaki and work directly with the community that had motivated these questions in the first place. I was fortunate to work with the regional agricultural cooperative at a supermarket-like farmers’ market that I had watched develop while growing up. Despite my longstanding interest in agriculture, I had never imagined myself working there.
Becoming part of the market showed me the enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work required to make farm-to-table systems function. More importantly, it gave me the opportunity to build relationships with farmers and staff. Some of my favorite moments were talking with farmers as they brought in their produce, brainstorming food samples with other staff members, or even gossiping about the day’s market drama.
Through these everyday interactions, however, I began to notice something I had largely missed when thinking about Japan’s declining farming population: the importance of autonomy and community. Conversations about agricultural succession often focus on economic incentives, such as subsidies, but farmers also spoke about finding meaning in their work, maintaining control over how they farm and sell their produce, and feeling connected to the people around them. I began to understand firsthand why community engagement and individual relationships matter when addressing systemic problems.
I did not leave Kawasaki having transformed the community or introduced some groundbreaking solution. In the past, that might have made me feel that my project had fallen short. Instead, I left feeling more empowered to continue working toward change precisely because I had learned how much becomes possible when people feel ownership over their work and connection to one another.
That realization also changed my understanding of leadership. Throughout my life, I had associated leadership with being the most outspoken person in the room. I am far from that kind of leader, and even now, the word “leadership” can make me uncomfortable. Through Laidlaw, however, I have begun to see that the one-on-one conversations I cherish can also be a form of community-engaged leadership. Listening closely, understanding why people care, and connecting perspectives across different spaces can be just as important as being the person speaking at the front of the room.
My community of Laidlaw Scholars has been instrumental in helping me redefine leadership in this way. They have challenged me to think not only about what I want to accomplish, but also about whom I want to accomplish it with and whose perspectives need to be part of the process.
Now, as a senior thinking about life after graduation, I am leaning toward a career in biological research, but I no longer feel that choosing biology means abandoning the other questions I care about. Perhaps I will someday work for an international organization alongside farming communities. Perhaps I will become a professor, researching plant resilience while mentoring the next generation of scientists. Or perhaps my path will take a form I cannot yet imagine.
I will keep exploring. What I do know is that I want to contribute to making plants more resilient, remain connected with farmers at the individual and community level, and help strengthen communication between science and policy. I no longer feel that I need to fit all of these ambitions neatly into a single job title. The problems I care about are larger than one discipline, one career, or one lifetime. My role is not to solve them alone, but to keep learning, listening, and contributing to the shared vision of a better future.