Tomoko L. Kitagawa worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and learned the importance of promoting international cooperation and mutual understanding through her involvement in the activities of the World Bank Group and the United Nations. After receiving her Ph.D. from Princeton University, she taught at Harvard University. She designed unique history courses that reflected her views of cultural diplomacy; her classes were well-received and she was cited as one of the students' favorite professors at Harvard by the class of 2012. In Japan, her first book, published in May 2012, became a national bestseller; she was selected as one of the 100 most influential people in Japan, and delivered a TEDx speech in Sendai. In the same year, Tomoko moved to Cambridge UK and conducted her research at the Needham Research Institute, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and Wolfson College Cambridge; she published three more books in the following year. In 2015, she visited the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics and published her fifth book in Japanese; she was cited as one of the 100 most amazing Japanese women and delivered a keynote speech at the World Heritage Learning Summit. In 2016, she moved back to North America and is continuing her writing at the University of California, Berkeley.