Major awards

Major awards(full-time staff,including members of the steering committee)

Assistant Professor Akiyama Masakazu: The Mathematical Society of Japan’s Prize for Excellent Young Applied Mathematicians (2014), for his research on “A Mathematical Model of Planar Cell Polarity.”

Assistant Professor Elliott Ginder: The Mathematical Society of Japan’s Prize for Excellent Young Applied Mathematicians (2014), for his research on “Droplet and bubble motion: a hyperbolic free boundary problem approach.”

Four researchers were awarded funding by Human Frontier Science Program, for their collaborative research in mathematical biology(in 2015, 13 of the awardees in this program were Nobel Laureates). This number is the third largest amongst the laboratories of Japan (RIKEN is 14, the University of Tokyo is 9), and is the top at any Institute in Japan in terms of the ratio of winners to the number of staff.

2013: Associate professor Chun-Biu Li, From stochastic cell behavior to reproducible shapes: the coordination behind morphogenesis (Joint research: Joliot-Curie Institute, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, Cornell University Plant Biology Department, Max Planck Institute)

2010: Professor Tamiki Komatsuzaki, Dynamical coordination in a multi-domain, peptide antibiotic mega-synthetase(Joint research: Munster university Department of Chemistry, Princeton University Department of Chemistry)

2010: Professor Ichiro Tsuda,Deliberative decision-making in rats(University of Minnesota Department of Neuroscience, University of StirlingDepartment of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington Department of Psychology,University of Edinburgh cognitive nervous system center)

Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki: Popular Science Award for the study of natural intelligence. Ig Nobel Cognitive Science Prize, “The unicellular organisms that true slime molds has discovered that solve the puzzle, such as the maze” (2008). Ig Nobel transportation planning Award, “True slime mold has the ability to design the rail network” (2010). NHK (Japanese TV program 爆笑問題の日本の教養) Baku-Nobel Prize“The study for clever unicellular true slime mold.

2007: Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki,Optimization in natural systems: ants, bees and slime moulds(Uppsala University Mathematics, University of Sydney Biological Sciences, University of Leipzig Computer Science)