Women Scientists Who Carried out Research at the University of Tokyo Even Before Female Students were Admitted.

In 1927, Kono Yasui became the first woman to achieve a doctorate degree in Japan and she brought her research topic, which she had developed into her thesis while studying abroad in the United States, back to Japan. After her return, she worked as a professor at Tokyo Women's Normal School (which is now Ochanomizu University) while at the same time she continued with her research as a part time in the botanical department at the Tokyo Imperial University.

After graduating from Japan Women's University, she remained at the university as an assistant of chemistry, while she supervised students in their experiments and performed any jobs for the university, she studied on her own and passed her pharmacist's exam. She furthered her studies by obtaining the opportunity to receive instruction from Professor Heizaburo Kondo as a research student of pharmaceutical department, Faculty of Medicine at Todai. She quietly got on with her research in the lab at Todai that would cause even her male counterparts to throw up their hands. This woman with no makeup on her face, clothes made of cotton and her hair carelessly done up was nicknamed "Miss Coal." Even after the period that she was a research student came to an end, she shuttled between the Japan Women's University at Mejiro and Todai to continue her research and became the first woman to get a doctorate in pharmacy.

Michiyo Tsujimura was the first woman to get a doctorate in Agriculture in Japan and after graduating from Tokyo Women's Normal School and spending seven years teaching, she started down the path to become a researcher, which she had been dreaming about for years. First off, she became an unpaid assistant in the agricultural chemistry department,, the Faculty of Agriculture at Hokkaido University, then via the medical chemistry department, the Faculty of Medicine at Todai, she carried out research as a research student under Professor Umetaro Suzuki on the components of green tea at RIKEN. After that, she became a professor at Ochanomizu University.