Newsletter No. 25
Professor Iwao Ojima, President and CEO of FUTI, Elected to the European Academy of Sciences
Dr. Iwao Ojima, President and CEO of Friends of UTokyo and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University, has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc) as a Fellow. He will be honored at the induction ceremony of new members at EurASc’s Annual Symposium and Ceremony of Awards event this April at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, which will be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Announcement issued by Stony Brook University reports: Throughout his research career, Dr. Ojima has had numerous ties to the European scientific community. He was first recognized by European chemistry communities in organometallic chemistry, catalysis and fluorine chemistry, prior to joining the faculty at Stony Brook. He has held two sabbaticals at universities in Lyon and Paris, and his inventions on natural product-based anticancer agents were licensed to both French and Italian pharmaceutical companies. Over the years, Dr. Ojima has had a good number of French, Italian, and other European postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in his laboratory. In addition, he served on the External Advisory Board of a highly innovative and successful multidisciplinary Center of Excellence, “Cell in Motion,” at the University of Münster and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany. Dr. Ojima says “I feel deeply honored to have been elected to the European Academy of Sciences as an American scientist, as well as a graduate of the University of Tokyo, given EurASc puts a 20 percent cap for its members from outside of Europe. Accordingly, I am thrilled to have been added to the exclusive roster of scientists in this prestigious academy.” We at Friends of UTokyo heartily congratulate Dr. Ojima for this prestigious international recognition. As FUTI is devoted to supporting future global leaders, he serves as a role model for Japan’s young people who aspire to become a “global scholar.” Please visit Stony Brook University News for a detailed description of Dr. Ojima’s awards and honors.
Newsletter No. 24
Newsletter No. 23
Newsletter No. 22
Ms. Tiffany Pang, 2011 recipient of the FUTI Global Leadership Award, named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs
Tiffany Pang, co-founder and CEO of Appledore, Inc., a company that creates Outreach Grid, a software program for government agencies and non-profits to collaborate to end homelessness, was recently selected for Forbes’ 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs list. Tiffany was chosen from more than 15,000 nominees described by the journal as “revolutionaries…changing the course –and the face of –business and society.” Forbes further comments: “Concerned about the rising homeless population in San Francisco, Pang left her job in Silicon Valley to start Outreach Grid. The company uses data and technology to build connections with underserved populations and provides city departments, service agencies, and community members with the tools to help homeless people find housing.” Her company has since launched in communities across four states in America. In 2011, Tiffany was a recipient of a scholarship from Friends of UTokyo. As a Yale undergraduate neuroscience major, she participated in the IARU Global Summer Program and the University of Tokyo Research Internship Program at UTokyo (UTRIP). She remarks of the experience: I participated in the University of Tokyo Research Internship Program (UTRIP) in 2011 and value the experience immensely. And while starting a software company seems a far cry from doing biochemical research, the friendships and connections I made during the program were invaluable and ultimately led to some of our first investors. Thank you for your support! Arigato Gozaimashita! Prof. Ojima, President of FUTI says, “FUTI aims to foster future leaders in scientific, cultural and social fields who contribute to the well-being of global humanity. We are pleased to have provided Ms. Tiffany Pang with a FUTI scholarship so that she had the opportunity for inspiring experiences at UTokyo. We are extremely proud of her accomplishments. Congratulations, Tiffany!”
FUTI is pleased to welcome Prof. Takatoshi Ito and Mr. Junji Takegami as new Board members, and announces additional responsibilities for Board members
At the Board meeting held on September 28, 2019, the FUTI Board appointed Prof. Takatoshi Ito, Columbia University, and Mr. Junji Takegami, co-founder and advisor, Tiger Pacific, as Board members. They both had served as Advisory Committee members prior to these appointments. FUTI Board also announced the following additional responsibilities for the following Board members: Prof. Iwao Ojima and Prof. Masaaki Yamada will serve as the Directors of University Relations. Dr. Shigenori Matsushita will serve as the Director of Scholarship Programs. Ms. Nobuko Sakurai will serve as the Director of FUTI Alumni Association Relations. Dr. Yuichiro Kuwama will continue as the Director of Financial Affairs. Ms. Sumiko Ito will serve as a Member of the Scholarship Committee. In addition, Mr. Katsuyuki Yamaguchi (President, New York Icho-kai) joined the FUTI Advisory Committee as Ex-officio member. Dr. Iwao Ojima, President of FUTI says, “We are very fortunate to have Prof. T. Ito and Mr. Takegami as new Board Members who are experts in economics and business. We have also appointed a kind of Executive Directors whose tasks are well defined. I believe these appointments will streamline and facilitate FUTI’s various activities. I also greatly appreciate Director S. Ito and Prof. S. Koide for serving in the Scholarship Committee. We also welcome Mr. Yamaguchi to the Advisory Committee in addition to four new members (Drs. Nakayama, Osako, Suzuki and A. Koide) who joined the Committee earlier this year. With those new appointments, anticipated productive collaborations with the UT-NY Office, and establishment of the FUTI Alumni Association, FUTI has bright prospects for fulfilling its mission.”
Newsletter No. 21
Hisashi Kobayashi awarded an honorary doctor degree from Ghent University, Belgium
Hisashi Kobayashi, a former Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Sherman Fairchild University Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Princeton University, was awarded an Honorary Doctor Degree from Ghent University on March 22nd, 2019, which was the 202nd Anniversary (Dies Natalis) of this second oldest University in Belgium. https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/dies-natalis-honorary-doctorates-2019.htm Kobayashi was honored for his contributions in a variety of research topics, including communication theory, queueing theory, and performance modeling and evaluation of computers and communication networks, which he carried out at both the IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY (1967-86) and Princeton University, NJ (1986-2008). Professor Herwig Bruneel of Ghent University, the nominator of Kobayashi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b7-bD0StFg&t=3s also refers to Kobayashi’s current effort to attack the 160-year-old mathematical problem, Riemann Hypothesis. See https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.02911, http://hp.hisashikobayashi.com/towards-a-proof-of-the-riemann-hypothesis-rh/ Kobayashi and Bruneel met for the first time in the fall of 1980, when Kobayashi gave a series of lectures on “Queuing theory” as an International Professor in Computer Science of Belgian NSF, hosted by Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Mr. Bruneel, a Ph.D. candidate at the time at Ghent University found Kobayashi’s lecture on “discrete-time queuing models,” especially intriguing, which then influenced his Ph.D. thesis and his subsequent research, so recalls Prof. Bruneel. Kobayashi remarks: “I feel extremely lucky that I had Mr. Bruneel in the audience 39 years ago. I am just happy to learn that my lectures impacted his research. I am overwhelmed by his extraordinary kindness to recognize my humble contribution in such a significant manner like granting me an honorary degree.” Kobayashi served as a director of Friends of UTokyo, Inc. since its inception in 2007. He succeeded Mr. Junji Masuda and served as its president from 2011 to 2015 when Prof. Masaaki Yamada succeeded him. Currently Kobayashi serves as the chair of FUTI’s Advisory Committee.
FUTI Advisory Committee Member, Professor Ojima receives Ernest Guenther Award from the American Chemical Society
FUTI Advisory Committee Member, Professor Iwao Ojima, University Distinguished Professor, Stony Brook University – State University of New York, recently received the prestigious 2019 Ernest Guenther Award from the American Chemical Society. The Guenther Award recognizes outstanding achievements in the analysis, structure elucidation, and chemical synthesis of natural products. The past award recipients include five Nobel laureates (e.g., Professor Satoshi Omura, Kitasato Institute) and the award is recognized as the highest prize in the chemistry of natural products worldwide. Professor Ojima is honored for his outstanding work on taxol and taxane-class diterpenes at the interface of natural product chemistry, synthetic methodology, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, and medicine. The award was presented to Professor Ojima at the Award Ceremony and Banquet on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in conjunction with the 257th ACS National Meeting in Orlando. There was an Award Symposium honoring Dr. Ojima at the same meeting in which he gave the Award Lecture and received a medallion associated with the Award. (For details, see https://news.stonybrook.edu/facultystaff/iwao-ojima-receives-ernest-guenther-award-in-chemistry/.)