Chief Guest

Prof. Takaaki Kajita

Takaaki Kajita is a Distinguished University Professor and a Special University Professor of The University of Tokyo. He is affiliated with the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR) of the University of Tokyo.

Kajita received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo School of Science in 1986 and has been researching with Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande neutrino detectors at the Kamioka Observatory of ICRR in central Japan. In 1998, at the Neutrino International Conference held in Takayama, Japan, he showed the analysis results which provided strong evidence for atmospheric neutrino oscillations. In 2015 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his role in discovering atmospheric neutrino oscillations. He is the project leader of KAGRA aiming to explore gravitational wave astronomy.

Kajita was the director of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research between 2008 and 2022. He was the President of the Science Council of Japan between 2020 and 2023. He has been a member of the Japan Academy since 2019.