Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) invites applications for several fellowships in contemporary Asia studies beginning in fall quarter 2027.

APARC offers a postdoctoral fellowship on contemporary Asia, broadly defined, and, through its research programs, postdoctoral and visiting fellow positions focused on Asia health policy, contemporary Southeast Asia, contemporary Taiwan, and research tracks of the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab.

Learn more about each opportunity and its specific application deadline and requirements:

2027-2028 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia

APARC offers two postdoctoral fellowship positions to recent PhD recipients for research on contemporary Asia. The primary research areas focus on political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region (including Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia), or international relations and international political economy in the region. Appointments are for one academic year beginning in fall quarter 2027. The application deadline is December 1, 2026. 

2027-2028 Asia Health Policy Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Offered by the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one recent PhD recipient for research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially developing countries. Appointments are for one academic year beginning in fall quarter 2027. The application deadline is December 1, 2026.

2027-2028 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship on Southeast Asia

The Lee Kong Chian Fellowship supports scholarship on contemporary Southeast Asia. It is open to candidates of all career stages with professional backgrounds and ongoing positions in the social sciences or humanities. Lee Kong Chian Fellows spend two to three quarters at Stanford pursuing research and writing projects. APARC's Southeast Asia Program supports research conducted under the fellowship. Appointments must begin and conclude within the period September 1, 2027, to June 30, 2028. The application deadline is January 25, 2027.

Note: The fellowship is no longer offered as a joint-residency program with the National University of Singapore. Fellows appointed through Stanford will be hosted at Stanford's Asia-Pacific Research Center, while those appointed through NUS will be hosted at NUS. Applicants who wish to pursue the fellowship at NUS should apply through the NUS application portal.

Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowships

In countries far along in the demographic transition, rapidly aging populations are colliding with a severe shortage of health care and elder care workers. Japan may be the most pertinent case study of this and other impacts of demographic disruption. The country’s fertility rate is decreasing faster than projected, and as of 2025, 30% of its population was aged 65 or older. These trends have contributed to a persistent gap between surging demand for elder care and a shrinking care workforce.

To cope with this crisis, the Japanese government has implemented several programs to promote the use of robots in nursing home care. These care robots (or “kaigo robots”) assist care workers and support residents with daily needs. But how does their adoption affect workflows, staff retention, and overall staffing of long-term care facilities? Few studies have empirically examined these questions.

Shedding light on the debate surrounding new automation technologies and their impact on workers, a recent study, published on August 6 in the inaugural issue of the journal Health Affairs Review, finds that care robots help address challenges posed by population aging and care-labor shortages without necessarily displacing workers or lowering care quality.

The study, titled Robots and Labor in the Service Sector: Evidence from Nursing Homes, is part of a collaborative effort driven by the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. The study’s co-authors are Stanford health economist Karen Eggleston, the director of AHPP; Toshiaki Iizuka of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Economics, a former AHPP visiting scholar; Yong Suk Lee of the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, formerly the SK Center Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Ellie Xi, a rising junior at Stanford studying biomedical computation on the pre-med track and a former research assistant to Dr. Eggleston.

“One of the aspects of the paper that I found most interesting is its attempt to move beyond simply documenting where robots are being adopted and instead ask what their adoption may actually do to the long-term care workforce, especially given the sector’s high turnover rates and physically demanding working conditions,” says Xi.

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Lessons from Early Diffusion of Robotics in the Long-Term Care Sector

The researchers grouped the robots prevalent in Japanese nursing homes into three main categories:

• Transfer aids: Wearable and non-wearable devices that assist staff with lifting frail residents from beds to wheelchairs, significantly reducing back strain, a leading cause of caregiver burnout.
• Mobility robots: Assistive systems that help residents move, use the restroom, or bathe more independently.
• Monitoring and communication systems: Sensors that alert staff when a resident has slipped out of bed or fallen, as well as social robots designed to offer companionship and cognitive stimulation.

To examine early diffusion of these robots, the researchers used 2017 survey data on long-term care work across approximately 860 Japanese nursing homes. A second source of data is their compilation of prefecture-level care robot subsidy availability, using regional variation in robot subsidies as an instrumental variable. Think of this as a natural experiment driven by a “geographic nudge.” Starting in 2015, Japan’s central government began providing prefectural governments with funds to subsidize the cost of adopting care robots. Because different prefectures introduced these subsidies at different times and with varying levels of generosity, nursing homes in some regions had a much easier path to acquiring and deploying robots than those in neighboring areas.

By comparing staffing trends between nursing homes that received this external, subsidy-driven "nudge" to adopt robots and those that did not, the researchers could confidently isolate the technology’s causal effects on the caregiving workforce.

The results indicate that nursing homes that adopted robots saw a significant decrease in staffing retention problems. Robot adoption was also associated with a 28% increase in care workers and a 39% increase in nurses, resulting in approximately 26% higher total employment at the facility level. Importantly, this employment growth occurred entirely among non-regular employees – that is, staff members on flexible, often part-time, contracts. The findings also suggest that robot adoption may improve continuity and quality of care while mitigating careworker shortages.

“Using nationally representative data from Japan and an instrumental-variable strategy, the study provides evidence suggesting that robots can complement rather than simply replace care workers, including by alleviating retention difficulties in a sector facing persistent labor shortages and potentially supporting quality of care,” explains Xi. “The paper’s central finding is that robot adoption is associated with reduced retention difficulties and increased employment of care workers and nurses under flexible contracts.”

A Human-Robot Collaborative Future for Elder Care

Caregiving is a physically demanding and high-stress occupation. The study’s findings indicate that, by introducing robots to ease staff burdens and monitor residents, nursing homes were able to promote more flexible work, either by increasing the tasks performed by non-regular employees or potentially encouraging part-time work. This type of work structure is encouraged by the Japan Nursing Association as a means for reducing stress, preventing burnout, and promoting a healthier work-life balance.

“Given recent debates about AI use in healthcare and the future of work, I found it especially interesting that this research highlights the potential for technology to augment caregivers, particularly by supporting physically demanding or indirect tasks, while preserving the human aspects of care that are more difficult to reproduce,” says Xi.

The study's findings are relevant for policymakers seeking evidence on the social value of collaborative robots and their impacts on staffing and care delivery, particularly as aging societies facing demographic pressures similar to Japan consider how to meet growing demand for long-term care.

A Mentorship Story

The study is part of Eggleston’s Innovation for Healthy Aging research track, which investigates how East Asian economies adopt and adapt to emerging technologies, design incentives, and adjust their workforces to support older adults. It builds on an earlier research project focused on the impact of robots on nursing home care in Japan.

For Xi, co-authoring the paper represents an academic milestone. "As someone deeply interested in geriatrics, I first began working with Dr. Karen Eggleston as a research assistant during the summer after my freshman year," Xi recalls. "Last spring, we decided to continue working together through a directed reading."

During that directed reading, Xi was invited to help revise and update a project that had previously circulated as an Asia Health Policy Program working paper. She worked to update the research, framing the original findings within the rapidly shifting landscape of care robotics and artificial intelligence in long-term care.

"I worked on situating the original findings within more recent research and developments in care robotics and considering what Japan’s experience can tell us about the role of these technologies in aging societies today," Xi says. "It was an incredible opportunity to work closely with Dr. Eggleston, Professor Toshiaki Iizuka, and Professor Yong Suk Lee. I was especially grateful to see firsthand how a collaborative project evolves and to contribute to that process as the paper moved from a working paper toward publication.”

Addressing Inequalities in Health Care

Liang’s summer medical school project examined the prevalence of receiving annual eye screenings among South Korean adult patients with type 2 diabetes and how access to that care differed across demographic and socioeconomic groups over time. The goal was to investigate why screening rates for diabetic retinopathy, a complication of type 2 diabetes, remain low in South Korea, despite the country having universal health insurance coverage and guidelines that recommend annual eye screenings to prevent this leading cause of blindness.

He worked on this project with co-advisors Eggleston and Young Kyung Do, a professor in Seoul National University’s Department of Health Policy and Management and AHPP’s inaugural postdoctoral fellow. They found that lower-income patients with diabetes experienced barriers to quality diabetes care and had lower access to annual diabetes-related eye screenings.

For Liang, these results underscored a deeper lesson: even strong health systems with universal health insurance coverage have structural socioeconomic inequities that leave vulnerable groups behind. The findings helped solidify his conviction that improving health care requires more than clinical training alone. 

The project culminated in Liang’s presentation of the findings at the 2021 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting and spurred a new sense of purpose. ”It grew into a life-changing journey at Stanford,” Liang says.

That journey has led him to collaborate with researchers from around the world, particularly in Japan, Korea, and China, utilizing large-scale data to advance population health and applying population health methods to research topics ranging from maternal and child health to mental health, aging, and inflammatory skin diseases.

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Liang in South Korea. Photo courtesy of Richard Liang.

From Research to Health Policy Impact

Over the years, Liang evolved from a mentee of Eggleston into a collaborator on projects in Korea and elsewhere. As COVID-19 disrupted health services worldwide, he joined Eggleston and a team of researchers in studying the impact of the pandemic on chronic disease care in India, China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Vietnam. Their findings showed that marginalized and rural communities in those countries were hit especially hard, with negative consequences for population health that reached far beyond those directly infected with the virus.

He and Eggleston also co-authored a study on preferences for telemedicine services among patients with diabetes and hypertension in South Korea during the early COVID-19 pandemic. The research drew the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office in Korea, which used it to guide national policy on telemedicine, a field still lacking a formal legal framework in the country.

For Liang, it was proof of the available opportunities to make tangible improvements in population health by combining rigorous research with policy engagement and drawing on insights across medicine, public health, and the social sciences.

“As a medical student researcher with experiences across different East Asian countries, I witnessed firsthand many pressing challenges in health and society, from rapidly aging populations to rising rates of chronic diseases,” he says. “To tackle these issues holistically, there is a growing need to bring together diverse perspectives, but regional collaborations in medical and public health research have been scarce, and rarer still between the biomedical and social sciences.”

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Liang in China on a field visit during a 2025 summer seminar co-taught by Professors Eggleston and Williams. Photo courtesy of Richard Liang.

A Second Academic Home

Eggleston describes Liang as a model of interdisciplinary scholarship. In addition to medical school and doctoral research, he has carved out space to pursue his passion for East Asian studies. He has taken classes with APARC and affiliated faculty on topics ranging from health and politics in modern China to historical and cultural perspectives on North Korea, science and literature in East Asia, and tech policy, innovation, and startup ecosystems in Silicon Valley and Japan.

“The various classes and seminars I’ve attended through APARC, and subsequently as an East Asian Studies master’s student, have helped me think more critically about how the science and practice of medicine impact policy and society, and vice versa,” Liang says. Thanks to these experiences, he also found “a second academic home away from the medical school — a community that shares the recognition of the need to strengthen dialogue and cooperation across the Pacific and that actively encourages the interdisciplinary environment necessary to make my aspirations a reality.”

Most recently, he participated in a summer seminar on AI-enabled global public health and population health management, co-taught by Eggleston and Michelle Williams, a professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Offered via the Stanford Center at Peking University, this three-week seminar focused on advancing global health through cross-cultural collaboration and the application of cutting-edge technology in population health and health policy decision-making. 

“During this program, I not only got to share my experiences from conducting population health research across East Asia, but also learn from and alongside fellow students across different disciplines, spanning from international relations to computer science,” Liang notes. He especially enjoyed meeting local Chinese graduate students and providing feedback and near-peer mentorship as an upper-year graduate student.

The seminar also led to exploring additional opportunities for research collaborations to study the implications of long-term annual health screenings across China. Liang, Eggleston, and Williams plan to expand this collaborative work.

Preparing to Become a Better Care Provider

Liang’s work across borders and disciplines not only advances research but also deepens the perspective of cultural humility he brings to his future role as a physician.

“The cross-cultural experiences and fruitful academic exchanges I’ve learned through as a Stanford graduate student not only inform my research in different countries, but also help prepare me to become a better care provider for my future patients,” he says.

For his achievements, Liang has earned multiple honors, including a Young Investigator Collegiality Award from the International and Japanese Societies for Investigative Dermatology, the Critical Language Scholarship in Korean from the U.S. Department of State, and the Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education Seed Grant.

He is looking forward to finishing medical school, attending a residency program, and continuing an interdisciplinary career that advances human health and well-being.

Reflecting on the fleeting nature of student life, his advice to fellow students is to remember that “Your time as a Stanford student can really fly by, so make sure to explore the opportunities that speak to you and offerings across the university, by organizations like APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The Bechtel International Center’s Office of Global Scholarships and the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking are also wonderful resources to get started.”

It is advice he has embodied himself, building a career at the intersection of medicine, public health, and East Asian studies, one project at a time.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite applications for a suite of fellowships in contemporary Asia studies to begin in fall quarter 2026.

The Center offers postdoctoral fellowships that promote multidisciplinary research on Asia health policy, contemporary Japan, and contemporary Asia broadly defined, as well as postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab and a visiting fellow position on contemporary Taiwan. Learn more about each opportunity and its specific application requirements:

2026-27 Asia Health Policy Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one recent PhD recipient undertaking original research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially developing countries. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025.

2026-27 Japan Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Japan Program at APARC, the fellowship supports research on contemporary Japan in a broad range of disciplines, including political science, economics, sociology, law, policy studies, and international relations. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025.  

2026-27 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia

APARC offers two postdoctoral fellowship positions to junior scholars for research and writing on contemporary Asia. The primary research areas focus on political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region (including Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia), or international relations and international political economy in the region. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025. 
 

2026-27 Taiwan Program Visiting Fellowship

Hosted by the Taiwan Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one mid-career to senior-level expert with extensive experience studying contemporary Taiwan. The fellowship research focus is on issues related to how Taiwan can meet the challenges and opportunities of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades, using a variety of disciplines, including the social sciences, public policy, and business. The application deadline is March 1, 2026.  
 

As countries confront rising health care spending, policymakers everywhere face a key question: Who benefits from these spending increases?

Consider South Korea, a nation that has sharply increased its per capita health care spending over the past decade, delivering reasonable value in improving health outcomes as measured by rising life expectancy and a reduced overall disease burden. Yet, not all South Koreans reap equal rewards from the country’s health investments, according to a new study. Rather, adults in the lowest-income quintile receive the least health gains for every dollar spent on their care.

Published in the journal Health Affairs Scholar, the study reveals stark income-based disparities in the value of health care — defined as health gains relative to spending — among South Korean adults. The research systematically quantifies how efficiently health spending translates into longer, healthier lives across income groups in South Korea, providing insights into the distribution of health gains relative to health care spending.

“While earlier research often examined disparities in access, utilization, or outcomes separately, our analysis provides a more integrated assessment by jointly examining health care costs and health gains,” explains the research team, including Stanford health economist Karen Eggleston, the director of the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) at APARC. Eggleston’s co-authors are Sungchul Park, an associate professor in Korea University’s Department of Health Policy and Management; Young Kyung Do, a professor in Seoul National University’s Department of Health Policy and Management and AHPP’s inaugural postdoctoral fellow; and David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. 

Their findings are sobering: between 2010 and 2018, South Korean adults in the lowest income quintile derived the least value from increased health spending compared to those in the middle- and higher income quintiles, suggesting a system that underserves the poorest population.

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Poorer Health, Smaller Gains

Between 2010 and 2019, per capita health care spending in Korea increased from $1,211 to $1,903, growing nearly 6 percent annually. During that decade, life expectancy climbed from 80.5 to 83.7 years, while disability-adjusted life years – expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health – declined significantly. These measures seemingly suggest health spending has yielded solid returns in terms of improved health outcomes.

Yet stark income inequality persists in Korea. The country has both the highest old-age poverty rate and the largest share of out-of-pocket medical expenses among OECD countries. Does rising health spending benefit all segments of society equally?

To answer this question, the researchers analyzed trends in health spending and outcomes across income quintiles (excluding the bottom 10 percent of the household income distribution) from 2010 to 2018.

They measured health care spending as total medical expenditures, including costs for inpatient and outpatient services, emergency services, and prescription medications. All spending measures were adjusted for inflation and are reported in 2021 US dollars. To asses health outcomes, they used three indicators: (1) health-related quality of life, which relies on standard questionnaires to measure individuals’ perceived physical and mental health over time; (2) life expectancy, calculated using life table methods based on enrollment data from the national health insurance system; and (3) quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) at age 25, a measure that reflects both longevity and the quality of life during those years – an essential consideration when evaluating the effectiveness and equity of health care systems. To quantify the value of health care across income groups, the researchers applied statistical methods.

They found that adults in the lowest-income quintile experienced the smallest relative improvement in QALE over time: an increase of 0.7 years, compared with 1.4 years in the second and third quintiles, 1.3 years in the fourth, and 1.2 years in the highest quintile. Translated into a value estimate, adults in the lowest income quintile incurred $78,209 per QALE; in contrast, adults in the second through highest income quintiles achieved greater value estimates of $47,831, $46,905, $31,757, and $53,889, respectively. Thus, the most efficient gains in both longevity and quality of life were in the middle-income groups.

“We found that per capita spending was similar across income groups, but the lowest-income quintile experienced much smaller gains in QALE,” Eggleston and her collaborators write. 

Reflecting the principle of diminishing returns, “these findings highlight structural inequities in the South Korean health system and emphasize the need for targeted policies to promote equitable health care value.” 

Why Spending Does Not Equal Value

While the study did not identify causal pathways, secondary data suggest two plausible explanations for the results: poorer baseline health and greater unmet needs.

The data indicate that adults in the lowest-income quintile had significantly higher rates of chronic disease, disability, behavioral risk factors such as smoking and obesity rates, and mental health issues. These factors make it more difficult to achieve health gains.

Moreover, adults in the lowest-income quintile were less likely to receive preventive services, with markedly lower rates of medical checkups and cancer screenings. “Despite greater health needs, these adults faced persistent barriers to accessing care, particularly financial constraints,” the researchers say.

Notably, the highest value of health spending was not observed among adults in the highest-income group. One explanation is that this group may consume more low-value or marginally beneficial health services.

Policy Implications: Efficiency with Equity

Eggleston and her co-authors emphasize “the need for health policy in South Korea to prioritize both equity and value.” They highlight the following targeted strategies to improve efficiency and fairness:

• Invest in high-value services that link spending to meaningful health outcomes:
  • Improve access to high-value preventive and primary care services by expanding financial protections, particularly for lower-income groups.
  • Improve overall system efficiency by reducing the overuse of low-value health care services.
• Pair health care reform with broader social policies: Coordinate efforts to address upstream factors tied to health disparities, such as income inequality.
• Aim for improvements across the entire population: Implement evidence-based clinical appropriateness guidelines to ensure health care spending yields meaningful and equitable results.

While focused on South Korea, the study’s findings illuminate how income inequality interacts with health system designs and carry lessons for other countries.

“In countries with greater income inequality and fragmented health systems, such as the United States, disparities in health care value may be even more pronounced,” the co-authors write.

As South Korea and other countries continue to invest heavily in health care, the study highlights the urgency of improving the distribution and impact of that increased spending. Without focused reforms, it risks entrenching existing inequities rather than alleviating them.