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Nagoya University
Professor Kodo Kawase received a PhD degree in electronic engineering from Tohoku University in 1996, became an Initiative Researcher at RIKEN in 2001, and Professor of the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University in 2005. He received the 2000 and 2006 Prizes for Laser Engineering from the Laser Society of Japan; the 2002 Research and Encouragement Award and the 2006 Special Research Award from the Marubun Research Promotion Foundation; and the 2005 Young Scientists Prize from the Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Technology (MEXT).
Q. What inspired you to become a researcher?
A. When I was a bachelor student in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Kyoto University, in 1988, I became interested in the Fröhlich hypothesis that suggests a possible non-thermal effect of terahertz or millimetre frequency waves on human cell activity. I learned that the lack of a widely tunable source that covers terahertz and millimetre frequencies was hindering the proof or otherwise of this hypothesis.
Q. How did you get started in your academic career? When did you start working in the terahertz field?
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