Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
After graduating from the Department of Science in 2010, I completed my doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences and am currently involved in education and research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
The starting point of my career choice was the fascination I felt in junior high school for proofs of the properties of numbers. In mathematics, once a claim is proven, it cannot be overturned. In addition, there is generally more than one proof policy, and proofs express the writer's way of thinking. Because of this fascination I felt for mathematical proofs and numbers, I decided to study mathematics, especially number theory, in the Department of Mathematics at university. After entering the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Science, I majored in number theory in my senior year.
After majoring in number theory, I became interested in bifurcation theory in algebraic number theory because of my interest in integer prime factorization that I had felt in junior high school, and I decided to study bifurcation theory in the laboratory of Professor Takeshi Saito, who specialized in bifurcation theory. Bifurcation theory in algebraic number theory is, roughly speaking, the study of the properties of factorization for numbers called algebraic integers, which have properties similar to those of integers. The invariants that appear here are local invariants in algebraic geometry, which views primes as points, and they play an active role in the geometrical problem of global versus local. The surprise I felt there, that the properties of numbers that attracted me in junior high school, such as factorization, determine even global properties in algebraic geometry, is what motivates me to study branching theory even today.
In terms of choosing a career path, my desire to experience the cutting edge of mathematics in a university Graduate School of Mathematics was something I had in junior high school, but it was not until much later that I considered a career at a university. During my university years, I had respect for my teachers in junior high school and high school who had made me feel attracted to mathematics, and I wanted to become a teacher at a prefectural high school in Ibaraki Prefecture, my hometown, after completing five years of research in mathematics at the graduate school. It was around the time when I was completing my master's degree that I thought about going to work at a university, largely because I felt the difficulty of completing my research in mathematics at a graduate school due to the grandeur of mathematics research and because a friend from my elementary school days suggested that I could become a teacher who would train teachers at a university. I was able to get through my post-doctoral period, during which I struggled to balance research and job hunting after obtaining my degree, thanks to the people around me who supported me, including Professor Takeshi Saito (Mathematics, Professor) and Saitama University, which hired me as a faculty member, as well as my desire to help future students through my work at the university.
Geometric diagram of the factorization of a prime p in a set OK consisting of algebraic integers into q1e1 q2e2⋯qrer in a slightly larger set OL consisting of algebraic integers. At each point qi, ei curves intersect, and Spec OK and Spec OL represent the sets of prime numbers in OK and OL, respectively.
At the university, in addition to teaching and research, I have been involved in a variety of tasks, such as managing the university, Faculty of Education, Department, and events held there, giving lectures at junior high schools and high schools, and working at academic conferences. I feel that the appeal of university teaching is that I can contribute to expanding the world of mathematics and connect with students and society directly and indirectly through mathematics.
In recent years, with the rise of machine learning and other developments, I feel that the demand for Faculty of Science graduates in society is increasing year by year. I hope that what I have written here will be helpful to readers in deciding how to choose a career path that interacts with society based on their interest in science.