My research interests lie primarily in the area of life cycle of diatoms, in particular, sexual reproduction and auxospore formation. Along with classical approaches using various microscopies, I try to use genomic and transcriptomic data to better understand the evolution and diversity of their life cycle strategies. I’m also currently working on valve morphogenesis, morphological plasticity, organellar genome inheritance, and phylogeny of different groups of diatoms. I had stayed in Germany for my PhD degree, and then moved to Scotland for my postdoc project. After 8 years stay in Europe I returned to Japan, and since 2014 I started working at the current university.