International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1378

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

In Celebration

Professor Masahiro Shoji on his 75th birthday

Professor Masahiro Shoji, who was born in a small village of Shikoku island of Japan on August 19 in 1943, is celebrating his 75thbirthday this year. On this occasion, we wish to appreciate his outstanding contributions and accomplishments in the field of heatand mass transfer.
Prof. Shoji graduated from The University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in1966 and finished his graduate course in 1971, receiving thedegree of Doctor of Engineering. He immediately joined The UTokyo’s Department of Mechanical Engineering as a lecturer andbecame a full professor in 1985, succeeding the chair of Prof.
Yoshiro Katto. After the retirement from UTokyo in 2004, heworked at AIST in Tsukuba for two years as an invited scientist,and then moved to Kanagawa University (KU) in Yokohama where
besides education and research, he engaged in the management ofthe university as a trustee, councilor and faculty dean. In 2014, heretired from KU and left from most academic duties. During theperiod of UTokyo and KU, he supervised over three hundreds graduate and undergraduate students. His present status is Emeritus
Professor of UTokyo.
The main research subjects of Prof. Shoji concerned with boilingheat transfer and surface tension driven phenomena. He also had

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.02.041

interests in many other problems of heat transfer and fluid phenomena such as vapor explosion, spray cooling, heat conduction
and thermo-fluid chaos. He authored and co-authored about fourhundreds journal and conference papers including four characteristic review articles. He wrote and edited eight books and handbooks and contributed to chapters of many other books.
Besides the research, he played an important role in Japanese
academic societies. He served as the president of The Heat Transfer
Society of Japan (HTSJ) and a director of Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME). He chaired numerous committees of thesocieties. For these contributions, he was honored as a fellow andan emeritus member of JSME and a permanent honored memberof HTSJ. His contribution to the development of engineering andtechnology in Japan is also remarkable. He was an active memberof the government committees and of many scientific communities. In particular, he has been devoting himself to the developmentof energy-saving technology through the job of JMF (The Japan
Machinery Foundation), and in 2001 he was appointed as areviewer delegated from Japan to select ISS research programs.
The international contribution of Prof. Shoji is also noteworthy.
He was an assembly member delegated from Japan for IHTC andattracted the 15th IHTC to Japan. He organized five international
conferences as a chair or a co-chair and served as an active memberof over fifty international conferences. At such fifteen conferences,
he presented keynote speeches. He also contributed to edit andpublish nine international journals. For these eminent contributions, he won a commendation as a distinguished scientist by
Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 2005 and received a lot ofother awards including Nusselt-Reynolds prize in 2005.
At present, continuing a few academic duties, Prof. Shoji isspending his spare time by enjoying his hobbies (tennis and ‘‘Go”game) and by visiting temples and shrines inside Japan. We wishhim a happy and healthy birthday and many returns of the day.
Shigeo Maruyama
The University of Tokyo, Japan
Hideo Yoshida
Kyoto University, Japan
Available online 21 February 2018