Motoko Kotani ( ja, 小谷 元子, born 1960) is a Japanese
applied mathematician, specializing in discrete geometric analysis and
crystallography
Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...
, and an academic administrator. She is the executive vice president for research for Tohoku University, the former executive director of
Riken, the former president of the
Mathematical Society of Japan, and the president-elect of the
International Science Council.
Education
Kotani graduated from the
University of Tokyo in 1983. She went to
Tokyo Metropolitan University for graduate study, earning a master's degree in 1985 and completing her doctorate in 1990.
Academic career
She was a lecturer at
Toho University
is a university in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.
History
The two brothers Yutaka Nukada and Susumu Nukada founded the Imperial Women's Medical College in Ōmori, Tokyo, the location of the present-day Faculty of Medicine, with their own money in 1925 a ...
from 1990 to 1997, and an associate professor there from 1997 to 1999, with a term as a postdoctoral researcher in Germany at the
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics
The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (german: Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik, MPIM) is a prestigious research institute located in Bonn, Germany. It is named in honor of the German physicist Max Planck
and forms part of the Max Planck S ...
from 1993 to 1994. In 1999, she moved to the Mathematics Institute of
Tohoku University. She was named as a distinguished professor there in 2008 and as director of the WPI Research Center, Advanced Institute for Materials Research in 2012. She became executive director of
Riken from 2017 to 2020, while continuing to hold a position as a researcher at Tohoku. In 2020 she was named executive vice president for research.
Service
Kotani was president of the
Mathematical Society of Japan from 2015 to 2016. She became president-elect of the
International Science Council in 2021, for a three-year term beginning in 2024. In 2022 the
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs named her as Science and Technology Co-Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Recognition
Kotani was the 2005 winner of the
Saruhashi Prize
The Saruhashi Prize (猿橋賞) is an annual prize awarded to a Japanese woman researcher in the natural sciences. The prize recognises accomplishments in research as well as the mentoring of other women scientists.
Japanese geochemist Katsuko Sar ...
.
References
External links
English-language home page at Tohoku UniversityVoices of Women at IHES: Motoko Kotani
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotani, Motoko
1960 births
Living people
Japanese mathematicians
Japanese women mathematicians
University of Tokyo alumni
Academic staff of Tohoku University