Profile：Yasuaki Hiraoka | KUIAS Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study

Yasuaki Hiraoka

Director of Center for Advanced Study, Professor, and Deputy Director of ASHBi

Research Fields

Topological data analysis, applied mathematics

Research Overview

Hiraoka is a world leading mathematician in the area of topological data analysis (TDA). He studies mathematical theory and algorithms of TDA, and also works on applying them into scientific and engineering problems. His primary interest is to develop descriptors for characterizing shape of complex and big data. By combining various mathematical theories such as topology, representation, probability, he succeeded in making TDA powerful and general for practical problems. In applications, he has organized the materials TDA team, and his group achieved several pioneering results on structural analysis in materials science based on TDA. In particular, a series of methods developed by his group using persistent homology, machine learning, and inverse analysis are expected to be a key technology for materials informatics in future. In addition to materials science, he has recently launched TDA projects for other application areas such as life science.

Biography

2005	Doctor of Science, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University
2005-2006	JSPS PD, Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University
2006-2009	Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University
2009-2011	Associate Professor, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University
2009-2010	Visiting researcher, Department of Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania
2011-2015	Associate Professor, Institute of Mathematics for Industry (IMI), Kyushu University
2015-2016	Associate Professor, Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University
2016-2018	Professor, Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University
2017-	Team Leader, Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, RIKEN
2018-	Director of Center for Advanced Study and Professor, KUIAS, Kyoto University
2018-	Deputy Director of Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology, KUIAS, Kyoto University

Awards

JSIAM best paper award (2004), The 1st Hiroshi Fujiwara Mathematical Science Award (2012), NISTEP Award (2016), JCS-Japan Award of the Outstanding Papers (2019), MIMS Mimura Award (2023)