Activities

AY2023 Presentation about Research Findings by Doctoral Students

Twenty-three doctoral students from the Tokyo Tech Academy for Convergence of Materials and Informatics (TAC-MI) presented their latest research findings at the Multi-Purpose Digital Hall on Ookayama Campus on June 27, 2023. Approximately 120 TAC-MI program staff members, students, and industrial collaborators tuned in to the presentations. This event was held in hybrid format for both in-person and online participants.

Part 1: Presentations of research findings by 1st-year doctoral students

In the first half of the event, 18 1st-year doctoral students gave presentations on the progress of their research and future prospects based on the fusion of materials and information. TAC-MI Program supervisor Hidetoshi Sekiguchi and TAC-MI Program Sub-coordinator Susumu Saito kicked things off with some opening words. After the opening remarks, the presentations started under the guidance of 2nd-year doctoral students who chaired the session. The seven-minute presentations, followed by four-minute Q&A sessions, provided all students the chance to appeal to the audience regarding the findings of their research thus far. In particular, students were able to rethink how they can convey their research to people from different fields. Following each talk, the students received challenging but positive questions from the audience, making the most of this opportunity to present their research findings to industry players.

Part2: Presentation of Self-Designed Thesis progress by 2nd-year doctoral student

In the second part of the event, chaired by TAC-MI’s Associate Professor Yu-ichiro Matsushita, five 2nd-year doctoral students gave presentations on the progress of their TAC-MI Self-Designed Theses.

For the Self-Designed Thesis, students choose a topic different from that of their dissertation and conduct research on their own initiative. They present these findings upon completion of their doctoral degree program, and faculty members at TAC-MI review the presentations. Through this process, students acquire the ability to conduct unique research independently based on new ideas supported by knowledge of materials science and information science, transcending their individual specializations. TAC-MI students present their research progress in English at either this event in June or the International Forum in December during the second year of their doctoral program. The rest of TAC-MI’s 2nd-year doctoral students will give presentations in December 2023.

Three students receive TAC-MI Special Award for Excellence

At the end of Part 1 and Part 2, students who have attained remarkable achievements in their educational and research activities received the TAC-MI Special Award for Excellence. This award, presented once a year to a carefully selected group of students, comes with additional financial support as a supplementary prize. As a result of rigorous screening, three students were selected for the award in academic year 2023.

＜TAC-MI Special Award for Excellence recipients＞

TAC-MI students’ interviews with industrial mentors

In the third part of the event, TAC-MI doctoral students conducted interviews with and received advice from their industrial mentors. TAC-MI students have the advantage of evaluating their strengths and weaknesses in face-to-face meetings with researchers, developers, technical experts, product planners, and marketing professionals from various industries. One industrial mentor is assigned to each student. Throughout the duration of this program, each student has an industrial mentor who continuously guides the student from enrollment to program completion. This time, fifty-six doctoral students conducted interviews with their industrial mentors.

After the event, TAC-MI program staff members and industrial collaborators who listened to the presentations provided opinions and comments to the presenters. This feedback included the following.

• Compared to last year’s presentation, in which students were accustomed to presenting online, in this year, the presenters were able to make presentations that effectively　appealed to the face-to-face audience. I thought that a face-to-face presentation would be better.
• There were several students who were able to give easy-to-understand explanations by narrowing down the amount of information to match the short presentation time of 7 minutes. I was very impressed with their presentation skills.
• I was surprised at the high level of Tokyo Tech doctoral students. It was impressive that the TAC-MI students actively asked questions among themselves.
• The students’ presentations explained the background of their research in detail, so it was easy to understand even if they were outside of my field of expertise. I believe that giving presentations to audiences outside the specialty and outside the university during doctoral course is an important opportunity to improve presentation skills.

At the end of the event, an exchange meeting was held to deepen communication between TAC-MI students, industrial collaborators, and faculty and staff. The opportunity to receive advice from industrial collaborators through interviews, exchange meetings, and feedback sheets after presentations was a valuable experience for the participating students.

Through exchange events with corporate partners, TAC-MI continues to cultivate multi-talented individuals required by industry who apply a broad, global perspective to understanding new social services and innovating new ideas.