Career Formation Support Seminar for Young Researchers held at TUFS

January 29, 2018

On Thursday the 21 ^st of December, the Career Formation Support Seminar for Young Researchers: 'The Current State of Life Events for Field Researchers,' aimed at students and young researchers planning to do research fieldwork overseas, was held in the Japanese Language Center for International Students.
For this seminar, Professor Naoko Nagatsuka (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowship for Young Scientists Postdoctoral Fellow) from the National Institute of Polar Research, and Professor Sumito Matoba from the Institute of Low Temperature Science Hokkaido University, were invited as guest lecturers.
Professor Nagatsuka gave a lecture titled 'The Birth of Female Glaciologists,' in which she discussed personal problems that arose from the differences in physical ability between males and females, worries caused by the glaciologist lifestyle, fieldwork experiences that brought about both tears and laughter, and ultimately the life lessons she learnt from these experiences.
Professor Matoba gave a lecture titled 'Life Events of a Natural Sciences Field Researcher: My Experiences in Bringing Family on Overseas Field Research,' in which he gave an informative yet humorous account of the perks and fun of fieldwork, his regrets concerning illnesses and parenting events, and the dilemma of juggling fieldwork with family life events.
On the day, the seminar proved to be very successful, with students and researchers attending from TUFS, partner institutions such as the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Studies and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and other institutions such as Hitotsubashi University, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, and the Japanese Association of University Women.
TUFS was chosen to participate in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's 2016 'Initiative for Realizing Diversity in the Research Environment,' Funds for the Development of Human Resources in Science and Technology . TUFS partner university, the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, was chosen as the leading institution for this initiative, and together our universities are working towards creating research environments that female researchers can flourish in. This seminar was held as part of this initiative.