Junko Hibiya is Professor Emerita of sociolinguistics at International Christian University, a pioneer of liberal arts education in Japan, established to cultivate globally minded citizens. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania (1988).
Her specialist subjects include Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Japanese Language studies and Japanese Language Education. Her research in the field of velar nasalization from phonetic, phonological and sociolinguistic perspective is widely cited. In the past three decades, she has also focused on language issues amongst immigrant communities, taking the lead in conducting a major sociolinguistic study funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Since 2015 she has been a member of the Central Council for Education, a permanent advisory council in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan; it carries out research and deliberations on important matters related to the development of education at all levels. She is also an active member of the Association of Asian Social Sciences Research Councils (AASSREC).
She was elected to an Associate Member of the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) in 2014 and then to a Council member in 2020, advancing SCJ's international collaborations in her capacity as Secretary of the Committee for International Affairs.