Director and Professor, Research Center for Safety Science at Kansai University and Executive Director of Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institute, Japan

Graduated from Department of Civil Engineering, Kyoto University in 1969, and obtained PhD in 1976 from Kyoto University. He was Associate Professor in 1976, Research Fellow, University of Washington in 1981-82, Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at Princeton University in 1992 and got the full professor position in 1993.

Now, he is Director of Research Center for Disaster Reduction Systems, DPRI, Kyoto University and also Executive Director of Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution established at Kobe since 2002.

Achievements

He published more than 400 technical papers and ten books in the fields of urban disasters and their emergency management. He is former President of Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science, Vice Presidents of Japan Society of Disaster Information and also Natural Hazard Society. He received the 1993 Japan Society of Civil Engineers Award and the 1994 Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science Award.