Speaker Kit
Researcher. Advocate. Speaker.
Everything you need to book, introduce, or feature Bia Kaori Mi: signature talks, research themes, bios in three lengths, press photos, and booking details.
Research Areas
Research and Speaking Themes
Six areas Bia Kaori Mi researches, writes, and speaks about, and the foundation behind every talk below.
Population Aging
Fast-aging societies and what they do to infrastructure, public budgets, labor markets, and family life. Japan is the primary case, but the comparative work runs to Brazil, Korea, and southern Europe.
Accessibility and Inclusion
Physical, communicational, and social barriers, examined as questions of public policy and design rather than individual accommodation, compared across Brazil, Japan, and the United States.
Japanese Culture and the Brazilian Diaspora
Life as a Japanese descendant in Brazil, the return migration to Japan, and what belonging means when neither society treats you as fully native.
Urban Infrastructure
How cities are built, who they are built for, and what design decisions reveal about whose movement was imagined and whose was not, with attention to transit and sidewalks.
Rare Disease Advocacy
Patient experience, diagnostic delay, and the structural barriers facing rare disease communities in Brazil and internationally, including care that exists in only one language.
Inclusive Fashion
Where clothing meets disability and identity. Dressing is a question of autonomy before it is a question of taste, covering adaptive design and representation.
Signature Talks
What Bia Kaori Mi Speaks About
Five signature talks, available in Portuguese and English. French and Japanese on request. Each can be shaped into a keynote, panel contribution, workshop, or fireside conversation.
What Japan's Super-Aged Society Teaches the Rest of Us
Japan is the world's first super-aged society, and its experience is a preview for countries aging faster than they are preparing, Brazil among them. Drawing on original MSc research, this talk maps what Japan's demographic shift reveals about infrastructure, care systems, and public policy, and what other nations can still choose to do differently while there is time to plan.
One in a Million, Twice: Living with Two Rare Diseases
Living with two ultra-rare conditions, Fibrous Dysplasia and McCune-Albright Syndrome, means navigating a medical world that was not built with you in mind. This talk is about what FD/MAS taught Bia Kaori Mi about resilience, self-advocacy, and being seen, and what rare disease advocacy looks like from Latin America, where infrastructure is thin and visibility is hard won.
Accessibility Is Infrastructure
Accessibility is too often framed as charity or an optional courtesy. This talk reframes it as public works: the ramps, signals, transit, and digital systems that a functioning society owes everyone. Using comparisons between Brazil and Japan, Bia Kaori Mi shows what it looks like when access is treated as infrastructure, and what it costs communities when it is not.
The Bridge: What 2 Million Japanese Brazilians Reveal About Identity
Brazil is home to the largest Japanese diaspora in the world, about 2 million people. As a mixed Brazilian-Japanese woman, Bia Kaori Mi uses that history to explore identity, culture, and belonging: what it means to live between two worlds, to carry inherited traditions, and to build a sense of self at the meeting point of two nations. A warm, personal talk about diaspora and the bridges people become.
Listening as Medicine: What Rare Disease Communities Know About Empathy
Patient communities hold expertise that clinical settings often miss. This talk positions rare disease communities as teachers of empathy, showing how exchanging lived experience builds understanding and improves care at the human scale. It is an argument for listening as a form of medicine, and for treating patients as people first.
Available for Academic, Corporate & Media Events
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Biography
Ready-to-Use Bios
Three lengths for different formats: program booklet, event listing, or full press feature.
Bia Kaori Mi is a Brazilian researcher, speaker, and rare disease advocate. Holding an MSc from the University of São Paulo and affiliated with GEASIA / NUPRI, USP, she specializes in accessibility, urban infrastructure, and population aging, with a comparative focus on Brazil, Japan, and the USA. She is the first Brazilian FD/MAS patient advocate in Latin America and speaks in Portuguese, English, French, and Japanese.
Bia Kaori Mi is a researcher, professor, speaker, and rare disease advocate based in Brasília, Brazil. She holds an MSc from the University of São Paulo (USP), where she is affiliated with GEASIA / NUPRI, the Asian Studies research group. Her work centers on accessibility, urban infrastructure, and population aging, with a comparative lens across Brazil, Japan, and the USA.
In 2023, she became the first Brazilian FD/MAS patient advocate in Latin America, a patient advocacy role for Fibrous Dysplasia and McCune-Albright Syndrome, two ultra-rare conditions she lives with. She co-hosted the first global FD/MAS community meeting for patients and families and has produced multilingual advocacy content reaching audiences across three continents.
She has spoken at TV GGN, Canal Saúde (Fiocruz), ESPM, Rádio Senado, and international FD/MAS events, and has lectured for GEASIA / NUPRI, USP. She presents in Portuguese, English, French, and Japanese.
Bia Kaori Mi is a researcher, professor, public speaker, and rare disease advocate based in Brasília, Brazil. She holds a Master's degree from the University of São Paulo (USP) and is an active researcher at GEASIA / NUPRI, the university's Asian Studies group. Her MSc dissertation examined Japan as the world's first super-aged society, exploring policy, infrastructure, and the lessons available to Brazil and other rapidly aging nations.
Her research centers on accessibility, urban infrastructure, and population aging, examined comparatively across Brazil, Japan, and the United States. She works from the conviction that academic knowledge must translate into accessible public communication, and has built a multilingual body of content across social media, writing, and public speaking that reaches non-specialist audiences without sacrificing analytical depth.
She lives with two ultra-rare conditions: Fibrous Dysplasia (FD) and McCune-Albright Syndrome (MAS). In 2023, she became the first Brazilian FD/MAS patient advocate in Latin America, co-hosting the first global FD/MAS community meeting for patients and families and producing Portuguese- and English-language content supporting other patients navigating the Brazilian healthcare system.
Her media and speaking appearances include TV GGN (Observatório de Geopolítica), Canal Saúde (Fiocruz), ESPM, Rádio Senado, SIMPORI (Instituto Santiago Dantas), the Encontro Discente de Estudos Japoneses, and international FD/MAS events. Her research has been cited by O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo, and the Jornal da USP, and she has published in Carta Internacional.
She holds a BA in International Relations (two academic merit awards), a CELTA in English language teaching, DALF C2 in French, and JLPT N2 in Japanese. Available to speak and present in Portuguese, English, French, and Japanese.
Press Photos
Photos for Media Use
High-resolution files for print and digital. Download the format that suits your layout.
Logistics
Languages, Formats & Requirements
Practical information for event planners and producers.
Languages
PortugueseNative
EnglishFluent · CELTA
FrenchDALF C2
JapaneseJLPT N2
Event Formats
- Keynote lecture
- Panel discussion
- Academic presentation
- Workshop / masterclass
- Podcast & audio interview
- Television & video interview
- Webinar (virtual)
Technical Requirements
- Slide presentation (provided by Bia Kaori Mi)
- Projector or screen
- Zoom / Google Meet compatible
- Stable internet connection
Track Record
Past Appearances
Media, academic, advocacy, and podcast appearances.
1 of 20 Podcast: In Conversation With Beatriz Kaori Miyakoshi Lopes
Podcast Interview · Spotify
Rádio Senado Podcast: Envelhecimento Populacional na Ordem Global
Podcast · Rádio Senado · Spotify
TV GGN, Observatório de Geopolítica: Envelhecimento no Leste Asiático
Television · Live debate · YouTube
Canal Saúde (Fiocruz): O que aprender com o Envelhecimento Populacional do Japão
Television · Interview
Curso GEASIA / USP: Segurança, Estratégias e Defesa
Academic · Guest Lecture · Universidade de São Paulo
SIMPORI 2023, Instituto Santiago Dantas, São Paulo
Academic Conference
Book Me
Invite Me to Your Event
Please include the event name and date, the expected audience and format, the topic you have in mind, and whether the event is in-person or virtual. I typically respond within 5 business days. For virtual events, no travel costs apply; for in-person events outside Brasília, travel and accommodation are negotiated per invitation.