Yoko Kugo earned a Ph.D in Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis on ethnogeography
from UAF in May 2021. Her dissertation, Iliamna Lake Ethnogeography: Yup’ik Place
Names and Sense of Place, examined the physical, intellectual, and spiritual understanding
of landscape by researching place names and stories about these places through Yup’ik
eyes (Yupiit iingitgun). She studied the Central Yup’ik language (Yugcetun) at UAF
for two years with her graduate committee co-chair, Dr. Walkie Charles, which has
also helped her to become familiar with Yup’ik ways of understanding the land. Her
main research and teaching interests include Indigenous knowledge systems, oral traditions
and art of Alaska Natives (southeast and southwest Alaska), Alaska Native language
(Yugcetun), place names, cultural anthropology, and Alaska history.
Kugo moved from one of the largest cities in the world, Tokyo, to Sitka, Alaska in
2006. She became interested in learning Northwest Coast basketry weaving, and was
fortunate to learn skills from master weavers including Teri Rofker (Tlingit) and
Dolores Churchill (Haida) when she lived in Sitka. Kugo then moved to Juneau, began
conducting ethnographic fieldwork to learn how climate change had influenced traditional
tree harvesting practices in the Juneau area, and completed her BA in Social Sciences.
She continued her studies and earned a MA in Anthropology at UAA. When she conducted
interviews to learn traditional and contemporary knowledge in the Iliamna Lake communities,
she learned that Yup’ik place names in the region had rarely been recorded—this situation
motivated her to start her Ph.D. program and move to Fairbanks.
While she conducted ethnographic field trips and came to know residents in the Iliamna
Lake communities, she discovered that the residents she met were also interested in
her research and background. In the course of her visits, Kugo organized sushi making
classes and community story time meetings, attended annual community events, and taught
young students Japanese songs and basic vocabularies as cultural exchange. Using a
community-based participatory research approach, Iliamna Lake communities and Kugo
published one community Elders’ life history book and two maps of Iliamna Lake Yup’ik
place names.
In her personal time, Kugo enjoys cooking, baking, walking, hiking, berry picking,
basketry weaving, and traveling.