Takashi Yamazaki, Ph.D. (University of Colorado, Boulder) is a professor of Geography at Osaka Metropolitan University, Japan. His current research interest concerns the (de)militarization of Okinawa and the critical geopolitics of Japanese foreign policy. He was/is a steering committee member of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Political Geography (2004–2016) and the Commission on Islands (2024-). He served as an editorial board member of Political Geography and Geopolitics for many years.
Godfrey Baldacchino, Ph.D. (Warwick), is a professor of Sociology at the University of Malta. He served as an Island Studies Teaching fellow, UNESCO co-chair, and Canada Research chair in Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Canada, between 2003 and 2020. He is the founding executive editor of Island Studies Journal, and since 2018, the founding executive editor of Small States & Territories journal. In 2021, he was appointed (thematic) Malta Ambassador for islands and small states. His research interests include island studies, small state studies, political geography, sociology of work, international relations, island tourism, entrepreneurship, brain rotation, immigration, labor relations, human resource management, adult education, worker empowerment, and the development of cooperatives.