Heather F. Heimbach is a first-year doctoral student in the Asian Religions subfield of the Department of Religion. She is interested in the development of new religious movements (NRM) in twentieth-century Japan. She hopes to investigate wartime and Occupation-period religion in Japan by exploring the history of Konkоkyо, a new religious movement registered as a Sectarian Shinto organization under the Japanese imperial regime. She received her B.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University in May 2020.