Walter is a research student at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, specializing in nuclear history and the history of atomic bomb survivors known in Japanese as hibakusha.
Under the guidance of Matthew C. Jones and José Antonio Cantón Álvarez at the Columbia-LSE program, Walter’s dissertation examined the Hiroshima House of Rest, a project and private voluntary organization founded by American International PEN writers Ira Morris and Edita Morris to provide direct aid to hibakusha in Hiroshima. The House of Rest operated as a transnational effort in collaboration with local Japan PEN novelist Tanabe Kōichirō and Tanabe Shigeko from 1957 until Ira Morris’s unexpected passing in 1972, after which the project was managed by Tanabe Kōichirō and Tanabe Shigeko in Hiroshima until 1991.
With support from the Japanese American Association of New York (JAANY), Honjo International Scholarship Foundation, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the Alliance Fellowship, Walter’s dissertation utilized English and Japanese archival records from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York and Hiroshima, where he was a visiting researcher with the City of Hiroshima during the summer of 2024.
Before entering the Columbia-LSE program, Walter earned his B.S. in History with a concentration in Education from the State University of New York Brockport. After graduating from the Columbia-LSE program in 2025, Walter received the Monbukagakushō (MEXT) Scholarship from the Government of Japan to study at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, under the supervision of Naono Akiko.
Walter’s current research examines the role of hibakusha in global anti-nuclear movements during the Cold War, with a focus on transnational exchanges of hibakusha to the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, through peace pilgrimages, representative delegations, and speaking engagements.
