Associate Director of  Programs

rshaffer -at- mansfieldfdn dot org

Ryan Shaffer is an Associate Director at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.  His primary focus is developing programs aimed at forging strong and productive relationships among the American and Japanese policy communities.

Mr. Shaffer manages many of the Foundation’s Japan programs including the U.S.-Japan Task Force, the Mansfield Committee on U.S.-Japan Relations, and the U.S.-Japan Cooperation on an Integrated Approach to Transportation dialogue.  Mr. Shaffer also is developing the U.S.-Japan Nuclear Working Group, a program designed to elevate matters of shared strategic concern to the U.S. and Japan within the Japanese government’s deliberations on post-Fukushima energy policy. In addition to Japan programming, Mr. Shaffer’s responsibilities include legislative exchanges with Vietnam and Korea, and programs aimed at enhancing trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Japan and other Asian nations.

Prior to joining the Mansfield Foundation, Mr. Shaffer served as a research analyst for the Washington office of the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan.  In that position, Mr. Shaffer assisted the office’s Japanese staff in engaging the American policy community on Japan’s nuclear energy program and analyzing developments in U.S. policy on energy, nonproliferation, and Japan.  Mr. Shaffer worked previously in Aichi, Japan for two years as an English teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program and in Freeport, Maine as the Kayak and Canoe sales department head at L.L. Bean.

Mr. Shaffer has an MS in Asian politics from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a BS in environmental policy from Bates College.  He is a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.