Jack Halpern is the CEO of The CJK Dictionary Institute (CJKI) in Japan. The institute is one of world's prime sources for Chinese, Japanese and Korean dictionaries and specializes in the compilation of comprehensive CJK and Arabic lexical databases for the NLP industry.
A lexicographer by profession, for sixteen years he engaged in the compilation of the New Japanese-English Character Dictionary, and as a research fellow at Showa Women's University (Tokyo) was editor-in-chief of several kanji dictionaries for learners, which have become standard reference works.
Jack Halpern, who has lived in Japan over 40 years, was born in Germany and lived in six countries including France, Brazil and the United States. An avid polyglot who specializes in Japanese and Chinese lexicography, he has studied 18 languages (fluent in ten) and has devoted several decades to the study of languages and lexicography. Founder and director of the Japan Yiddish Club, he has taught his native Yiddish to Japanese students. His favorite language is Brazilian Portuguese, which he speaks fluently and considers "God's mother tongue."
Jack Halpern published over twenty books and dozens of articles and academic papers, mostly on the Japanese writing system and CJK information processing, has given over 600 public lectures on Japanese language and culture, and presented several dozen papers at international conferences.
On a lighter note, Jack Halpern loves the sport of unicycling. Founder and long-time president of the International Unicycling Federation, he has promoted the sport worldwide for some 30 years, and started the sport of unicyling in Japan. Currently, his passion is playing the quena and improving his Chinese, Esperanto and Arabic.