TOPICS

Young Faculty:Lecturer Yusuke Kishita

 

 

 

 

<Biography>
September 2010 Ph.D., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University
September 2010 – March 2011, Research Fellow (PD), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
April 2011 – March 2012, Project Researcher, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University
April 2012 – March 2015 Project Assistant Professor, Center for Environmental Innovation Design for Sustainability, Osaka University
April 2015 – March 2016 Research Scientist, Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
April 2016 – Present Lecturer, Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo
November 2017 The University of Tokyo Excellent Young Researcher 2017
August - November 2019 Guest Researcher, Technical University of Braunschweig
December 2019 – February 2020 Visiting Academic Fellow, University of Cambridge

 

<About The Research>

The momentum on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations and Circular Economy in Europe brings the opportunity to transform the current paradigm of manufacturing industry toward sustainable society. While design thinking and life cycle thinking are already popularized, however, less research has been done to develop theories for create future visions and derive possible measures to achieve those visions.
Based on expertise in the field of design engineering and life cycle engineering, our laboratory has been attempting to develop new methodologies for designing future manufacturing and society toward sustainability. More concretely, we have been developing methods for describing scenarios and roadmaps using computational systems with the aim to support decision making for designers, e.g., corporate strategists and policy makers (Figure 1). Since we intend to visualize designers’ design thought processes, workshops involving multiple stakeholders are often used for verification of our methods (Figure 2). Furthermore, simulation models are developed to quantitatively explain what might happen in the future (Figure 3).

 

(Figure 1).

 

(Figure 2).

 

(Figure 3).

 

<Future aspirations>

The research question: ‘How to design sustainable futures’ is inherently unclear and obscure in terms of research goals to be achieved when compared with normal engineering problems. Because relevant research has not yet been well-explored, there are still many opportunities to propose new methods that would provide a significant influence in the academic community. We will make further progress to develop theories useful in real world, in collaboration with researchers, academic communities, and industry in Japan as well as overseas researchers in, e.g., UK and Germany.

 

・Kishita Lab. : http://www.susdesign.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kishitalab/index_en.html

・Award and Commendations
http://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/foee/topics/setnws_201712281133448813031143.html 
http://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/foee/topics/setnws_201712081315114758650554.html