Tomoko Hasegawa wins the JST 5th Brilliant Female Researchers Award

In Japan, the percentage of female researchers is low, as is the participation of women in research and development. In response, the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) established the Brilliant Female Researchers Award (Jun Ashida Award) in 2019 to recognize female researchers who are conducting excellent research and other activities that contribute to a sustainable society and future and to recognize institutions that promote the activities of female researchers. Jun Shida Award is only given to one young generation female researcher a year from all scientific fields.

Associate Professor  Tomoko Hasegawa (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto University and NIES) has achieved remarkable results with her original simulation models and creative analyses of the impact of climate change on policymaking and food issues in the agriculture and land use sectors around the world. In particular, she has gained worldwide recognition for her research pointing out the possible negative impact of future reductions in greenhouse gas emissions on food consumption and the potential risk of hunger. She also contributed to IAM community in two directions. First, she has led at least two model inter-comparison studies published in Nature Climate Change and Nature Sustainability. Both of them are key literature in this field. Second, having served as the lead author of Working Group III’s contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), she is also a leading researcher in her field who is active in the global arena. Aside from her research, she contributes to the development of talented individuals in her lab who aim to become international leaders.