Yoko Akama is a design researcher and educator. Yoko's upbringing, education and employment in Australia, UK, US and Japan have grounded a practice that is committed to enhance qualities of inter-relating, embrace differences and cultural sensitivity to deeply engage with complexities. Yoko's Japanese heritage and collaboration in and around the Asia-Pacific shapes their research, teaching and participatory work to address various entrenched issues and explore shared human and more-than-human futures.

Yoko is a recipient of several national and international awards and research funding for collaborative work with self-determining Indigenous nations and communities preparing for disaster. These have been published in several books: Uncertainty and Possibility (2018); Modes of Uncertainty in HCI (2022) and Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific (2023).