IMAkira Nakada

Akira Nakada developed his chess in New York, joining the Marshall Chess Club in 2014 and later co-founding the chess club at Dalton. He trained with Sam Shankland at the U.S. Chess School in San Francisco in 2019 and wrote an account of the lessons for US Chess. In 2020 he received a Scholar Chessplayer Award, which recognizes achievement in chess, academics and leadership. FIDE records his FIDE Master title in 2021 and International Master title in 2024.

At Harvard, he served as the chess club’s administrative director in 2022-23 and 2023-24. His academic work included a 2023 project using a Bayesian statistical algorithm to detect cheating in chess. He also wrote a historical research paper published by The Concord Review and received its inaugural Fitzhugh Prize in 2021. In 2026 he played on the Harvard team that reached the quarterfinals of the FIDE World University Team Championship in Almaty.