Acceptance of the Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society, 2019

Abstract

I would like to thank Sasha for the kind words, all those who took the time and effort to write letters nominating me for the Leonard Medal, and the Leonard Medal Committee of the Meteoritical Society for awarding me this great honor. Many of the past recipients of this award have been scientific heroes to me, and it is hard to express how it feels to be included in this distinguished group. I was born as the first son in a family that farmed mandarin oranges. I loved to play in the orange farm to find small fragments of rock crystals and to be lost in thought. At that time, I dreamed of becoming a scientist. According to the traditional Japanese custom, the first son must succeed the family business, but my parents encouraged everything that I wanted to do. This was probably due to their experiences when they were young, because some of their dreams might not be realized due to Japanese social and economic situations in those days. Thank you, Mom and Dad. I wish that they were still with us so that they could see the results of their encouragements. I was a student of Shigeho Sueno and Naoki Onuma at the University of Tsukuba. Mineo Kumazawa encouraged me all the time. The University of Tsukuba was just being constructed in the wild when I entered. I learned frontier spirit from the university. I have learned an open-minded policy of laboratory management from Shige Sueno and exploration strategy for research from Naoki Onuma and Mineo Kumazawa. They generously gave me access to a new state-of-the-art secondary ion mass spectrometer when I entered my master's course. I used to play with the SIMS like playing with my pet. I changed hardware and software of the SIMS every day through my whole graduate student life. After my PhD, I was fortunate to be employed at the same university. This was the time when I started to study meteorites. Jim Papike came to my university and invited me to South Dakota, United States, for 1 year and I worked with Chip Shearer. I have learned American research style as well as American culture from them, although South Dakota might be unique in America. I then moved to Tokyo Tech in 1994. The life of Tokyo Tech was very stimulating for me because many crazy colleagues worked on the same floor of my building, such as Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Shige Maruyama, and Eiichi Takahashi. The floor was a place where new ideas and new motivation were born. The ideas were discussed in a joint seminar with Hiroshi Nagasawa. I went to Gakushuin University weekly with my students for the seminar. In parallel, I struggled with a dilemma why my science style might be a little bit different from others. John Wasson helped me to integrate my style with others, especially with John's style, and vice versa. Collaboration with Sasha Krot started from this time. I finally moved to Hokkaido University in 2005. I opened the Isotope Imaging Laboratory, which is now an international open facility and many colleagues come to use SIMS from all over the world. This is so gratifying and I appreciate that I have learned so much from my teachers, colleagues, postdocs, and students. On a personal note, my family has been very supportive through my crazy scientific life. I thank my wife, Atsuko, and two sons, Naoki and Terumi. Atsuko helped me to recognize the important things in family and relationships. She also has encouraged me to keep fit and healthy, even as I resisted. To end, I thank all of you for providing a vibrant and enjoyable research community, which I am very proud to be a part of.