Dr. Makiko Hirata is the instructor of Stanford e-Wakayama, Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan, and Entrepreneurship and Sustainability for Eikei University of Hiroshima. 

An international pianist with ten released albums, Dr. Hirata is also known as “Dr. Pianist.” With a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University, she is on a mission to promote the power of music to heal and unite us. She collaborates with neuroscientists to quantify the benefit of music and promote the power of music as an overlooked social resource to enhance our individual and social well-being. She is a US-Japan Leadership Program Fellow, a founding member of TEMPO: Music for Climate Action, and a recipient of the Coeuraj 2022 Global Courage Fellowship, which honors industry leaders around the world whose work focuses on building trust in an era of polarization.

Japanese-born Dr. Hirata has lived in the United States since she was accepted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division at the age of 13. She has given recitals, lectures, concerto performances, and outreach concerts in the Americas and Eurasia with ensembles and artists, such as the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Pecs Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, conductor Leon Fleisher, and clarinetist David Krakauer. She has taught at New York University, Colburn Conservatory of Music, Rice University, and Lone Star College, and given master classes and lectures internationally.