Tom Ikeda, Executive Director
Tom is the founding Executive Director of Densho. He is a sansei (third generation Japanese American) who was born and raised in Seattle. Tom’s parents and grandparents were incarcerated during World War II at Minidoka, Idaho. In addition to leading the organization over the last 15 years, Tom has conducted over 200 video-recorded, oral history interviews with Japanese Americans. Prior to working at Densho, Tom was a General Manager at Microsoft Corporation in the Multimedia Publishing Group. Tom also worked as a research engineer developing hemodializers (artificial kidneys) with Cordis Dow Corporation and as a financial analyst at the Weyerhaeuser Company. Tom graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Chemical Engineering, BA in Chemistry and an MBA. He has received numerous awards for his historical contributions, including the Humanities Washington Award for outstanding achievement in the public humanities, the National JACL Japanese American of the Biennium award for Education, and the Microsoft Alumni Fellows Award.

Geoff Froh, Deputy Director
Though trained as a social scientist, Geoff has over 15 years of experience developing technology and information management strategies for a variety of for-profit and non-profit ventures, ranging from small think-tanks and startups to the Department of State, the Adobe Corporation and his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Most recently, Geoff served as the Chief Information Officer of Health Alliance International, an NGO engaged in global health work. Born and raised in the Washington, DC metro area, Geoff has a BA in Asian Studies from the University of Virginia and an MS in Information Management from the University of Washington. His interests range from information science to political thought in 19th century Japan, and — when he is not chained to a computer — Geoff enjoys engaging in ill-conceived mountain-biking expeditions.

Janet Hayakawa, Contract Education Specialist and Workshop Facilitator

Janet Hayakawa is an education specialist who has helped Densho develop teacher workshops since 2010. Janet is Japanese American, born and raised in Seattle. Her parents and grandparents were incarcerated during World War II at Minidoka, Idaho, and Tule Lake, California. Prior to working with Densho, Janet prepared a study on the achievement gap for the Washington State Legislature, facilitated school reform efforts with schools in Washington and Oregon, and was involved in the production of over 400 educational television programs – including hosting a series, New Tools: Teaching with Technology – which was distributed nationally. She has taught students and teachers across the country through her work at the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Education Development Center, public television’s Thirteen/WNET, and the Creative Arts Team at New York University. Janet started her career as a classroom teacher in the Seattle Public Schools.

Dana Hoshide, Production Manager
Dana is a Yonsei who was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but grew up in Seattle. She first learned about the incarceration in part from her maternal and paternal grandparents who were incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka camps during World War II. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in American Ethnic Studies and has worked for Densho ever since. Her work with the project includes videography, digitizing visual history interviews, and processing interview transcripts and historic photographs and documents.

Geoffrey Jost, Senior Software Developer
Geoffrey graduated from California State University Fresno with a BA in Linguistics and minors in Music and Japanese, and a year’s study at Waseda University in Tokyo. He then joined the JET Program and taught English in Kawai-cho, Nara Prefecture, following that with a Masters in Library & Information Studies from the University of California Los Angeles. Because working in a library would be too obvious, he then became a web developer, cutting his teeth in the computer games industry before moving to the Japanese American National Museum, where he was the primary software developer for all the Museum’s web sites including DiscoverNikkei.org. His first computer was a TRS-80 Model I.

Naoko Magasis, Office Manager/Event Coordinator
Naoko Magasis was born in Kobe, Seattle’s sister city, and raised in Kyoto, Japan. She graduated from Kobe College with a BA in English and worked in Osaka before she came to the U.S. in 1987. She manages Densho’s fundraising events, processes financial transactions and reports, and translates materials.

Brian Niiya, Content Director
Brian Niiya is a Sansei born and raised in Southern California to Nisei parents who were born and raised in Hawai’i. His maternal grandfather was one of the small number of Japanese Americans from Hawai’i who were interned, and his mother’s family went to Japan on an exchange ship during the war. Brian is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College (a hard core science and engineering school, Mudd has somehow produced two well known Japanese Americanists, both of whom once worked for Densho) and holds an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA. His professional life has been dedicated to Japanese American public history and information management, having held various positions with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i that have involved managing collections, curating exhibitions, developing public programs, and producing videos, books, and websites. He has also written widely read newspaper columns for the Rafu Shimpo, Nikkei West, and the Pacific Citizen and edited the Encyclopedia of Japanese American History, published in 1993 with a second edition in 2000. He has lived and worked in Honolulu since 1996.

Caitlin Oiye, Photo and Document Collections Manager
Caitlin Oiye is a yonsei who was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. Her interest in the incarceration stems from her paternal family’s experiences at Tule Lake incarceration camp. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in History and from Western Washington University with an MA in History/Archives and Records Management. Caitlin is also in the process of earning her Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. Before joining Densho she worked at Windermere, Lane Powell, and, most recently, King County where she focused much of her time on electronic records management systems.

Natasha Varner, Communications Manager
Growing up in Arizona, Natasha was aware of Japanese American incarceration from an early age but gained a deeper understanding of it after moving to Seattle in 2013 and while working to promote books on the subject at the University of Washington Press. Prior to her move to Seattle, Natasha worked at the University of Arizona Press where she ran First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies, an innovative collaboration aimed at supporting first-time authors and building community with Indigenous studies scholars and publishers. She is currently completing a dissertation on the creation of racial stereotypes in 20th century Mexico through the University of Arizona’s Department of History. She manages Densho’s print and digital communications, with particular focus on the education program, blog, and other social media platforms.

Nina Wallace, Special Projects
Nina is a yonsei who grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. Her maternal grandmother, one of six children to the only Japanese American family in a small town a few miles west of the Washington-Idaho border, was not incarcerated during World War II but recalls the day her father was arrested by the FBI. Nina graduated from Seattle University in 2009, where she worked as a consultant in the campus writing center and received a BA in English and Philosophy. She manages Densho’s contacts, processes donations, and transcribes oral history interviews.

Virginia Yamada, Grant Manager/Visual History Coordinator
Virginia’s first meaningful exposure to the incarceration came from the firsthand accounts and poems of her mother-in-law: a human rights activist and gifted storyteller, who was incarcerated as a teenager at Minidoka with her mother and three brothers, while her father was held at Crystal City. In college, Virginia turned her interest in numerous social science subjects into a BA in Cultural Anthropology from UC Santa Barbara. Presently, she likes to think that this background is put to good use as she manages Densho’s grants and coordinates the visual history interviews.