DATE2025.10.16 #Awards & Prizes

Professor Hiroyuki Kagi has received Two Prestigious Academic Society Awards

 
Professor Hiroyuki Kagi

Professor Hiroyuki Kagi of the Geochemical Research Center has been honored with two distinguished awards: the Geochemical Society of Japan Award (September 2025), recognizing his outstanding academic contributions to the advancement of geochemistry, and the Japan Society of High Pressure Science and Technology Award (October 2025), presented to researchers who have made significant achievements in the development of high-pressure science and technology and earned international distinction in the field.

Professor Kagi’s pioneering research centers on elucidating the behavior of hydrogen in minerals under high-pressure conditions. Through the combined application of high-pressure vibrational spectroscopy and neutron diffraction, he has quantitatively demonstrated how mineral structural parameters vary with pressure—an enduring challenge in both geochemistry and mineral physics.

A cornerstone of his research is the development of PLANET, a high-pressure neutron diffractometer at J-PARC. Professor Kagi played a leading role in proposing and establishing this state-of-the-art instrument in the mid-2000s, thereby enabling high-pressure neutron diffraction experiments in Japan for the first time. Today, PLANET serves as a central facility for high-pressure materials research, utilized by scientists worldwide, and has made a decisive impact on advancing our understanding of deep Earth materials.

Among Professor Kagi’s recent achievements using PLANET is the elucidation of the volume expansion behavior of iron–hydrogen compounds. By quantifying hydrogen-induced volume expansion in iron under extreme pressure and temperature, his team revealed that the presence of nickel and silicon markedly enhances this effect compared with pure iron. This groundbreaking discovery necessitates a major revision of existing models estimating the hydrogen content of Earth’s core based solely on pure iron.

In addition to his contributions to Earth and planetary sciences, Professor Kagi is also expanding the frontiers of high-pressure research into the fields of life and environmental sciences, further broadening the scope and impact of his work.

We extend our sincere congratulations to Professor Hiroyuki Kagi on receiving these two prestigious honors, which recognize his exceptional achievements in both geochemistry and high-pressure science. We wish him continued success in his future research endeavors.

The Geochemical Society of Japan Award
The Japan Society of High Pressure Science and Technology Award

(Written by: Professor Takafumi Hirata, Geochemical Research Center)