UTokyo President’s Log

We welcomed French Minister of Higher Education and Research Sylvie Retailleau to UTokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), during her visit to Japan to attend the G7 science and technology ministers’ meeting.

I personally have a long-standing association with France, having served as a co-director of the Laboratory for Integrated Micro-Mechatronic Systems (LIMMS), an international research laboratory operated jointly by CNRS, France’s national center for scientific research, and IIS, and located on UTokyo’s Komaba Research Campus.

We had a fruitful discussion on a range of topics, including student and researcher exchanges and collaboration with various French institutions.

I attended the screening of Cyber Everything, a documentary film exploring the impact of the “cyber” domain on the modern human condition, which has been transformed by cutting-edge developments in technology.

Following the screening, I joined a roundtable discussion centered around the topic of art and its social and philosphical significance, which included the film’s producer and New York University professor, Shimon Dotan; University of Bonn Professor Markus Gabriel; film producer Netaya Anbar; Tokyo University of the Arts President Katsuhiko Hibino; and Professor Takahiro Nakajima, director of UTokyo’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia.

I visited the headquarters of the Kavli Foundation in Los Angeles. The foundation was established with a vision to advance science for the benefit of humanity and funds 20 research institutes worldwide, including the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) within UTokyo.

I met with President Cynthia M. Friend during my visit, and we discussed initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion, and opportunities to hold joint events, among other topics.

I visited the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and toured various facilites on the campus of the private science and engineering institute in Pasadena, California.

I met with Caltech’s President Thomas F. Rosenbaum and we discussed various topics, including diversity and inclusion and initiatives to promote science and academics.

I also met with the institute’s provost, Professor David Tirrell, and the directors of Caltech’s various research centers, with whom I discussed the impact of the COVID pandemic on student learning, as well as sustainability and other topics.

I visited the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex at Northeastern University, a private institution of higher learning in Boston, and toured the cutting-edge facility’s labs involved in the life sciences, robotics, information and communication, and other areas.

I met with Northeastern University’s President Joseph E. Aoun and we discussed the potential for international collaboration to tackle climate change.

I gave a talk on UTokyo’s startup ecosystem and university-industry collaboration, at a workshop at CIC Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sponsored by the Greater Tokyo Biocommunity (GTB) — an industry-academia-government network for bioindustry in the Tokyo metropolitan area — Tokyo Medical and Dental University, UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Ltd. and UTokyo.

Following my talk, CIC founder Timothy Rowe and I had a fireside chat on a variety of topics, ranging from UTokyo’s initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion, to my affection for the guitar, which I took up as a student.

I attended the inauguration ceremony of Sally Kornbluth as the 18th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ahead of the ceremony, I also joined a procession in full academic dress of presidents and delegates from the worldwide academic community.

I had the opportunity to meet with President Kornbluth on a later date and we discussed possiblities for new areas of collaboration between our two institutions in the future, among other topics.