Jada Fraser is an Associate in The Asia Group’s Japan practice, where she supports clients with in-depth research and analysis on foreign and defense policy and advice on navigating the political dynamics around critical and emerging technologies and digital services.
Prior to joining The Asia Group, Jada was a Country Director for Japan at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where her portfolio covered information security, and the cyber and space domains, as well as U.S.-Japan cooperation through various minilateral groupings in the Indo-Pacific region. Prior to her role at the Pentagon, Jada worked as a Fellow in the Northeast Asia Policy Directorate at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Combatant Command Headquarters in Honolulu and was responsible for supporting the Japan and Republic of Korea Desks. Her experience across the Department of Defense gave Jada a nuanced understanding of how the U.S. and Japanese interagency cooperate to implement their respective National Security Strategies, as well as the growing role of public-private partnerships to meet the challenges posed by an increasingly severe regional security environment.
Jada also worked as a Policy Research Fellow at the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), as well as a Research Assistant with the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where her research focused on geopolitical developments stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic and U.S.-China strategic competition.
Jada will graduate with her Master of Arts in Asian Studies from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in May 2025. Her graduate research explored the rise of new patterns of cooperation, such as minilaterals—relatively informal small groups of states that cooperate to address specific challenges—particularly among the United States and its allies. Jada also served as the Editor-in-Chief of Volume 9 of the Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs.
Jada is the Indo-Pacific Minilaterals Fellow with the Yokosuka Council on Asia Pacific Studies (YCAPS). She is also a member of the Young Leaders Program and a U.S.-Japan Next Generation Fellow with Pacific Forum. Jada has published extensively, including with War on the Rocks, Nikkei Asia, and the Lowy Institute, among other outlets. Jada received her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Global Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, with concentrations on East Asia and National Security. She leveraged a U.S.-Japan Council scholarship and a Boren Fellowship to pursue study abroad opportunities in Japan both as an undergraduate and graduate student.
Born at Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo, Japan and raised in Texas, Jada is proficient in Japanese. In her free time, Jada enjoys playing pickleball, bouldering, and trying out new spots in the DMV food and drink scene.