TJU Honorary Professor Yuji Sano from Kochi University and Prof. Yoshiro Takahashi from the University of Tokyovisited Tianjin University from March 27th to 30th.
Dean of the School of Earth System Science (SESS), Prof. Cong-Qiang Liu met with the delegation, and had in-depth discussions on establishing a formal cooperative relationship between the SESS, the Marine Core Research Institute at Kochi University, and the School of Science at the University of Tokyo. Possible collaboration may include faculty/student exchange, joint Ph.D supervision, joint research, etc..
On the afternoon of March 28th, Prof. Takahashi was invited to give an academic presentation titled "Speciation of various elements on an asteroid Ryugu to estimate aqueous environment in the parent body using a key material, smectite". The presentation focuses on the origin of life and water on early Earth, introducing asteroid Ryugu samples collected by Japan's Hayabusa2 mission, as well as various elemental chemical compositions obtained using scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) and synchrotron radiation X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) techniques.
During the visit, the visiting professors also paid a visit to the National Facility for Earthquake Engineering Simulation.
Yuji Sano is currently a professor at Kochi University. He has been appointed as the director of Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University after his retirement as an Emeritus Professor from Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo. He is also an Honorary Professor at Tianjin University. Prof. Yuji Sano has been a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) since 2012 and a Fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry since 2019. He has published over 400 research papers, with over 16200 citations from Google Scholar.
Yoshiro Takahashi is a professor at the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo, Director of the Isotope Science Center, and President of the Geochemical Society of Japan. His research focuses on geochemistry, environmental chemistry, and radiochemistry, and he has been engaged in research on key element cycling on Earth’s surface, environmental science, planetary science, and synchrotron radiation techniques. He has published over 350 research papers, with over 15700 citations from Google Scholar.
