Zachary Piper

Zach was a CIR in Kochi-ken from 2001 to 2004. He lived in Umaji-mura, a small mountain village, for his first two years and moved to Kochi City to work at City Hall for his third. During his time on JET, Zach taught English at elementary and junior high school (his smallest school had five students total across three grades), learned much about the local culture and dialect, raised money for scholarships with Genki Seinenkai (the Kochi JET musical theater group), and travelled as an interpreter with a delegation from Kochi City to their sister city, Fresno, CA.

Since returning from Japan, Zach has continued to work in education, initially as an ESL teacher at a nonprofit in Cambridge, MA, and later as the center director for a major language school in Manhattan. Currently, Zach works at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law as an Associate Registrar. You’ll often see him at karaoke events and the yukata pub crawl.