Dr. Etsuko Ogasawara is the founder and Executive Director of the Japanese Association for Women in Sport (JWS). She holds a Ph.D. in Sport Management from the Ohio State University. Currently, she is a professor of sport management at Juntendo University in Japan. In addition, she is one of founders and an executive board member and chair of the committee of international affairs for Japanese Association for Sport Management (JASM). She was the president of Asian Association for Sport Management (2018-2021).
Dr. Ogasawara was the Chair of the Steering Committee for the 2001 First Asian Conference on Women and Sport and has subsequently been elected Chair of the Asian Working Group on Women and Sport (AWG), and completed her work as the chair of AWG in 2007. She had been a member of the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG) from 2000 to 2010, and was the Co-Chair for the period 2002-2006 in order to organize the successful 2006 World Conference on Women and Sport in Kumamoto, Japan. Now, she is the Asian representative member of the IWG executive Board (2015-present).
Before beginning her doctoral studies, she was an assistant professor at the National Institute of Fitness and Sport in Kanoya, Japan, and a head coach of the swim team. At the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, she joined the Japanese national swimming team as a coaching staff.
Dr. Ogasawara received the Contribution Award of AVON for Women in 2004 in Japan, and also the 2012 International Pathfinder Award from the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport in the USA. In addition, Dr. Ogasawara was awarded the 2018 Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) Sport Award (Women and Sport Award).
Dr. Ogasawara was appointed as the first executive director of the Japanese Center for Research on Women in Sport (JCRWS) that was newly established at the Juntendo University on September 1st, 2014, and has served in this position until now.