As Clarke’s three laws

Q　What was your motivation for joining the program, and what about the program appeals to you?

I applied to the program because I thought it would be a special opportunity to meet students from a variety of fields. Once we enter graduate school, we will spend a lot of time with your friends in your laboratory or in the same field. This is also an important time for deepening our own research. On the other hand, we tend to have fewer opportunities to engage with friends in completely different fields. In this program, students can study together with students from different fields, which we believe is a major attraction of this program. I believe that the interaction with students from different fields will help us to stay creative and free from preconceived ideas in our own research.

Q　What is your expertise and how do you want to develop it with the program?

My expertise is in the field of nonverbal expression in androids (humanoid robots that looks like humans). When we humans communicate face-to-face, we often use non-verbal expressions such as gestures and eye contact. Conversely, these tend to be lost when communicating remotely via telephone or videoconferencing systems. My research aims to realize telecommunications that do not lose such nonverbal information by using teleoperated androids instead of telephone or videoconferencing systems. Through this program, I would like to further develop my research.

Q　What are your future dreams and goals?

One of Clarke’s three laws is that “a well-developed technology is indistinguishable from magic”. As a robotics researcher, I would like to develop technology that is like the magic described in Clarke’s three laws.