Lani Alden is a PhD Candidate at the University of California at Berkeley in Japanese studies. She is also obtaining two designated emphases. The first is in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the second is in New Media Studies. She is also obtaining a Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Graduate Student Instructor Teaching and Resource Center.

Her current research focuses on the ways in which bodies that trouble or confound, particularly bodies on the stage, are rendered in various emerging media forms in early 20th century Japan. She is particularly interested in the role media plays in (gendered) identity formation. In particular, she focuses on onnagata who failed to succeed on the stage, who are overlooked by contemporary scholars, or who were part of movements that largely did not survive like shinpa. Her next project will focus on costume as a media technology, its role in memory formation, and the role memory plays in performance.

She also develops software for Japanese research. In the past she has developed computerised tools to assist with reading kuzushiji, automate research across many databases, enable more complex interaction on sites like JapanKnowledge, OCR and search texts, and better display kanbun online. Her most recent digital humanities work is dedicated to making sources related to theatre more easily accessible and searchable en-masse using SQLite, Mecab, and tokenization.

She has attendant interests in fan and audience studies, audio studies, digital humanities, photography, podcasts, and audio drama.