Hitoshi Osaki has been Director General of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science since July 1990. He is also a Member of Science Council, Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho), and Member of Policy Committee, Council for Science and Technology, Prime Minister's Office. During his career at Monbusho, he served as Director General, Science and International Affairs Bureau (1982-1985), and Director General, Higher Education Bureau (1985-1986). He was Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs (1986-1988) and Director of Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art (1988-1990). He received his LL.B. from Kyoto University in 1955.
Toshio Sata has been Vice President of Toyota Technological Institute since July 1994. He is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo. Prior to assuming his present position, he served as Professor, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. (1965-1986), Executive Director (1986-1990) and Executive Vice President (1990-1994) of Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN). He holds Doctor of Engineering Science from the University of Tokyo. He was awarded the Gold Medal from Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Harushige Inoue Memorial Prize, Violet Medal of Japanese Government, and George Schlesinger Preis.
Minoru Oda has been Director of International Institute for Advanced Studies and President of Tokyo University of Information Sciences both since 1994. He served as Director General (1984-1988) of National Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS), then as President of Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN, 198801993). His academic careers during the period include: Cosmic Ray Physics at Osaka City University, MIT, and Institute for Nuclear Study of the University of Tokyo (1950-1962), and X-ray Astronomy at MIT, ISAS and RIKEN(1962-). He holds a Doctor of Science from Osaka University. He received the Japan Academy Award (1975), Von Karman Award (International Academy of Astronautics, 1987), the Order of Cultural Merit (1993) and others.
Leo Esaki is President of University of Tsukuba. Prior to assuming his present position, he had been engaged in research as an IBM fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, since 1960. Before that, he worked at the Sony Corporation, Tokyo, where his research on heavily-doped Ge and Si resulted in the discovery of the Esaki tunnel diode in 1957: this diode constitutes the first quantum electron device. His major field is semiconductor physics. During his stay at IBM Research, Dr. Esaki, with his colleagues, pioneered "designed semiconductor quantum structures" such as man-made superlattices with exploring of a new quantum regime in the frontier of semiconductor physics. He has been President of the University of Tsukuba since 1992. His current interest is centered on the reform and internationalization of the Japanese education system. Dr. Esaki was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (1973) in recognition of his pioneering work on tunneling in solids and discovery of the Esaki tunnel diode. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics of the University of Tokyo.
Setsuro Ebashi is Professor Emeritus of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences. He was Professor of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tokyo (1959-1983), Professor (1983-1986) and Director General (1985-1991) of National Institute for Physiological Science, and President of Okazaki National Research Institutes (1991-1993). During that period, he also served Guest Investigator of Rockfeller Institute (1959), Visiting Professor of University of California, San Francisco (1963) and Harvard University (1974), Professor and Chairman of the Graduate Course of Physiological Sciences of Graduate University (1988-1991). He was elected the President of International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) from 1990 to 1994. He holds a Doctor of Medicine (1944) and Doctor of Medical Sciences (1954) from the University of Tokyo. His awards include the Imperial Prize from Japan Academy (1972) and the First Order of the Sacred Treasure (1995). He was decorated with the Order of Cultural Merit in 1975.
Daniel Nathans is Interim President of the Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments as University Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Senior Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Nathans' research interests have centered on protein biosynthesis, viruses that cause tumors in animals, and cellular responses to growth factors. In their analysis of a model tumor virus Nathans and his students used restriction enzymes to construct maps of the viral genome, to isolate specific gene segments, and to modify DNA molecules at predetermined sites. This work aided the development of methods for cloning and sequencing DNA and for mapping human genes. For the application of restriction enzymes to problems of molecular genetics Nathans shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Werner Aber and Hamilton O. Smith. In 1993 he received the U.S. National Medal of Science.Leon Max Lederman is Director Emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, having been Director from 1979 to 1989. He is Pritzkar Professor of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was Professor of Physics at Columbia University from 1958 to 1989 and the Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago from 1989 to 1991.
Dr. Lederman's research has spanned four decades and includes many remarkable achievements. In 1956, Lederman and his team from Columbia University discovered the long-lived neutral K-meson particle. In 1961, Lederman and his group discovered the muon neutrino, which provided the first proof that there was more than one type of neutrino, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988. In 1977, he and his collaborators discovered evidence for a innovative experiments he led at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, and the CERN Laboratory in Geneva set the paradigm for modern nuclear physics and particle physics research. Dr. Lederman has long recognized the importance of science education to the intellectual and economic health of society. While Director of Fermilab, he opened the laboratory to countries not previously associated with high energy physics, especially Latin American countries. He also initiated over 15 programs introducing topics in modern physics to high school students, elementary school teachers, and college teachers. His vision and leadership recently brought into existence the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, the first three-year state-wide residence public high school for gifted children, and the Teacher's Academy of Mathematics and Science in Chicago. Lederman, 73, was born in New York, NY. He received his B.S. degree from City College of New York in 1943 and his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1951. He was chairman of the board and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1991-1993). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Among his numerous awards are the National Medal of Science (1965), the Wolf Prize in Physics (1983) and Nobel Prize.D. Allan Bromley is Sterling Professor of the Sciences and Dean of Engineering at Yale University. During 1989-1993 he was Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. As President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific society, and of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the world coordinating body for that science, he has been one of the leading spokesman for U.S. science and for international scientific cooperation. He is the incoming President of the American Physical Society.
James Watson Cronin has been a Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago since 1971. He served as Assistant Physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1955 to 1958 and as Assistant Professor to Professor of Physics at Princeton University from 1958 to 1971. He is also a member of National Academy of Sciences, American Physical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Cronin has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the violation of fundamental symmetry principles in the disintegration of neural K mesons in 1980, and is also the recipient of other notable honors including the Franklin Medal and the Ernest O. Lawrence Award.Back to the Table of Contents