Prof. Nissim Otmazgin is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Acting Director of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. His PhD dissertation (Kyoto University, 2007), which examines the export of Japan’s popular culture to Asia, won the Iue Asia Pacific Research Prize in October 2007 for outstanding dissertation on society and culture in Asia. As a part of this research, he conducted extensive fieldwork in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Seoul.

His research interests include Japanese contemporary culture and society, contemporary culture and regionalization in East and Southeast Asia, Japan-Southeast Asian relations, and cultural industry and cultural policy in Japan and South Korea. He is the author of Regionalizing Culture: the Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2013) and (together with Miki Daliot-Bul) The Anime Boom in the US: Lessons for Global Creative Industries (Harvard Asia Center, 2017).

He has also co-edited a number of books on Japanese and East Asian culture and society: (together with Rebecca Suter) Stories for the Nation: Rewriting History in Manga (Palgrave- Macmillan, 2016), (together with Sigal Ben-Raphael Galanti and Alon Levkowitz) Japan's Multilayered Democracy (Lexington Books, 2015), (together with Eyal Ben-Ari) of Popular Culture and the State in East and Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2012) and Popular Culture Co-production and Collaboration in East and Southeast Asia (National University of Singapore Press and Kyoto University Press, 2013).

He published articles in a number of leading academic journals including Pacific Affairs, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific Review, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Media, Culture & Society, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, and Contemporary Japan.

Prof. Otmazgin received several research grants, including from the European Union's Marie Curie Program the Israel Science Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and the Korea Foundation. For six consecutive years (2009-2015), he was listed in the Outstanding Teachers List, based on students’ annual evaluation survey. He is a founding member of the Israeli Association for Japanese Studies (IAJS) and served as its chair between 2012-2015.

In October 2012 he was awarded The Professor Yoram Ben-Porat Hebrew University President Prize for Outstanding Young Researcher for the year 2012-2013. In June 2015, he was selected Israel's Young Academy, which includes 30 leading Israeli scientists of all fields of sciences under the age of 45.