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Makoto Gonokami is the President of the University of Tokyo. He received his BSc (Faculty of Science), MSc (Graduate School of Science) and PhD (Graduate School of Science) all at the University of Tokyo. His research has specialized in optical quantum physics. He has held many appointments within the University of Tokyo, including Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering (1998), Professor at the Graduate School of Science (2010), Vice President, (2012), Dean of the Graduate School of Science (2014), and President (from April 2015).

He has been a member in many committees including Council for Science and Technology and the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters. Books in Japanese include “Driving Innovation in Society: The University of Tokyo’s Vision 2020” (University of Tokyo Press) and “Map of the Future University: Creating a Knowledge-Intensive Society” (Chikuma Shinsho).

Sir Philip Campbell has been Editor-in-Chief of Springer Nature since 2018 and previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nature between 1995 and 2018. Prior to this he was the Founding Editor of Physics World in the UK and Physical Science Editor for Nature. Sir Philip received his PhD from the University of Leicester and his doctoral and post-doctoral work was on the physics of the ionized upper atmosphere. He has worked with multiple international organizations including the UK government, the EU and the US National Institutes of Health on science and its impacts on society. He is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a former Trustee of Cancer Research UK and a Founding Trustee and former Chair of MQ: transforming Mental Health. Sir Philip was knighted in 2015 for his services to Science.

Taikan Oki is Special Advisor to the President and Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He is also the Senior Vice-Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. His research specializes in global hydrology, climate change and the sustainability of world water resources, including virtual water trade and water footprints. He was one of the Coordinating Lead Authors for the chapter “Freshwater Resources” of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

He obtained his BEng and PhD degrees at the University of Tokyo, along with qualification as a weather forecaster. He became a Professor at the University of Tokyo in 2006, and a full member of The Club of Rome and a full member of the Science Council of Japan since October 2020. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Biwako Prize for Ecology (2011), and the Japan Academy Medal (2008). He is the first Japanese Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in its Hydrology Section (2014).
 

Hiroyasu Hasumi studies the climate and its change, primarily from the viewpoint of physical oceanography. He develops and applies numerical models of the ocean, specializing in global scale oceanic deep circulation and associated polar ocean processes. He has also engaged in future projections of the climate since the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, and has investigated possible changes in the ocean and the climate over the Pacific region. In recent years, he has been leading research teams in national research projects focusing on climate change on the Arctic environment. He has also been conducting precise simulations of the seas around Japan, and intends to apply these findings to explore how the oceanic environment is influenced by land-based human activities through riverine discharges of dissolved and suspended matter.

Alexandros Gasparatos is Associate Professor at The Institute of Future Initiatives (IFI) at the University of Tokyo. As an ecological economist he is interested in the development, refinement and application of sustainability assessment and ecosystem services valuation tools. He has applied such tools in different topics such as food security, energy policy, green economy, and urban sustainability in many developing countries of Africa and Asia. Before joining IFI he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford and the United Nations University. He is an Editor for Sustainability Science, People and Nature, and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and has served as a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the Asia-Pacific Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).