Masahiro Yoshimura, a world-renowned expert on ceramics and materials science, has been appointed director of National Cheng Kung University’s Promotion Center for Global Materials Research (PCGMR), which is scheduled to be launched on Friday.
“Under the leadership of Professor Yoshimura, the center will upgrade the university’s global status via materials science and engineering,” said Liao Jiunn-der (廖峻德), director of the university’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and coordinator of the new center.
Its missions include studying innovative materials and their processing and properties, carrying out global-level research, educating members and students on presentation and communication skills, fostering international cooperative work in materials research and building global-level materials consortiums among world universities and institutions.
Yoshimura, a professor emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology, had been a visiting professor with the material sciences department since January last year and was recruited as a distinguished professor in July this year.
He has also carried out research in the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Laboratoire de Chimie Appliquee de l’Etat Solide in France.
Yoshimura has received many awards, such as the 2006 Tokyo Metropolitan Academic Award, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture & Science 2007 Research Award and the 2009 Lee Hsun Award from the Institute of Metal Research in China.
After the opening of the center on Friday, this year’s Nanotechnology for Advanced Materials Symposium will take place, to which about 40 academics from Taiwan, the UK, France, India, Japan and South Korea have been invited to give lectures.
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