I was born in Chikuho area, Fukuoka on 28 May 1957 and grown up in Saga City, both in Kyushu island, Japan Graduated from La Salle High School and the University of Tokyo, I majored in plant ecology and ecophysiology under the guidance of Professor SAEKI, Toshiro. After conferred Doctor of Science from The University of Tokyo in 1985, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The Research School of Biological Science, The Australian National University, under the guidance of Drs. Graham D. FARQUHAR and C. Barry OSMOND. I was an assistant professor in the laboratory of Prof. KATOH, Sakae at Department of Botany, The University of Tokyo from 1988 to 1994, associate professor in the group of Prof. OIKAWA, Takehisa at the Institute of Biological Science, Tsukuba University from 1994 to 1997, and professor at the Department of Biology, Osaka University from 1997 to 2006.  From April 2006, I was a professor at Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo. After retirement in March 2023,  I worked as a research fellow in the laboratory of Prof. YAMORI, Wataru, at Institute Sustainable Agro-ecosystem services, the University of Tokyo, and in August 2024, I started a new job as Professor and Yushan fellow at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. I have been studying construction and maintenance mechanisms of the photosynthetic systems of the leaf, herbaceous plant, and tree. Scaling and eco-devo studies are key words of my science. I am greatly fond of tasting Sake, sitting in Yose vaudevillian theatres, and listening/playing music.

Plants, unable to move, must respond accurately to their environment. Our goal is to elucidate the physiological mechanisms underlying plant responses to environmental changes (addressing the "How" questions), while also exploring the significance of these responses (addressing the "Why" questions).  We are tackling these questions primarily through the study of photosynthesis, the most fundamental chemical reaction on the globe.