About Hiro Ugaya

Hiro (pronounces 'hero')  Ugaya is a Tokyo-based male freelance writer / photo journalist. His photography works  vary from intensive photo coverage of Fukushima's nuclear disaster since March 2011,  to street photography of Tokyoites, artistc capture of micro beauty of nature and portraits.

 

Born Hiromichi Ugaya (烏賀陽弘道) in Kyoto City, Japan in 1963, he started journalist careeer as a staff writer / photographer of one of major national dailys named Asahi Shimbun in 1986 shortly after fiishing bachelor degree at National Kyoto Univeristy Depeartment of Economics.  In 10 years of serving as a staff writer of national weekly news magazine "AERA" from 1991 to 2001, Hiro Ugaya covered  various kinds of international news such as Kobe Earthquake (1995),  a cult group Aum Supreme Truth's  subway nerve gas attack (1995), the US Presidential Compaign (1996). Hiro also served as a foreign correspondent of Aera magazine to New York from 1998 to 1999. He  became a freelancer in 2003 and authored 10 books since the year.

 

Academically, Hiro achieved the master degree of international affairs ( international security policy ) from the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University, in the city of New York, USA in the class of 1994 as a recipient of Rotary International Foundation's scholarship . He majored in international military policy and the US-Japan security issues.  

 

Hiro is also widely-known as a popular  music critic and as a bass guitar player.