Akiko HORIYAMA is a seasoned columnist with nearly a decade of experience as a Seoul correspondent, specializing in the Korean Peninsula. In 2020, she served as the president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club, a prestigious association composed of 300 correspondents, while she was Seoul bureau Chief.
Currently, she is a fellow at the Seoul National University's Institute for Japanese Studies and resides in Seoul. She contributes premium columns such as "K-Wave Paradigm" and "24 Colors of the Pen" to the Mainichi Newspaper's website, exclusively for premium members.
Her expertise centers on the political diplomacy and historical frictions between Korea and Japan. She obtained her master's degree from Kookmin University, where her thesis provided an incisive analysis of the diplomatic documents related to the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty and the policies towards Japan under Roh Moo-hyun's administration. She completed her doctoral studies in 2018 at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies.