Dr. Yerlan Akhapov is a senior lecturer of Japan Studies Division at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. In 1999, he graduated with honors from the Almaty Institute of International Journalism. In 2006, he was awarded the Japan’s MEXT scholarship and graduated in 2009 with a Master's degree in Business and the Environment at Kyushu International University (Japan), and he received his Ph.D. degree at Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies at Kyoto University (Japan) in 2012. He completed professional development courses at the Japanese-Language Institute of the Japan Foundation (Urawa, Japan): a six-month course in "Enhancing Japanese Language Teaching Methodology for Teachers of Japanese as a Foreign Language" in 2004-2005, and a special course on "21st Century Skills" for Japanese language teachers in 2019. From 1999 to 2005, he worked as a senior lecturer in Japanese at the Department of Eastern Languages at the Institute of International Professions. Since the 2014 to present, he has been teaching at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, serving as the head of the Japanese Studies Department in the 2019-2020. In the 2017-2018, he was the Chairman of the Young Scientists Council at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. His research interests include Japanese studies and global environmental studies.