Hokkaido University (HU) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA) are pleased to announce the results of the HU-UMA Joint Research Seed Fund 2026.
This year, priority was given to research proposals in the fields of Advanced Agriculture; Blue/Green Economy, Sustainability and Planetary Boundaries; Future of Food, Polymer Science and Engineering; and Advanced Manufacturing. A total of eleven applications were submitted, with half led by early‑career researchers, indicating strong potential for sustainable collaborations in the years to come.
HU selected:
- Professor Hiroyuki Akinaga (Faculty of Information Science and Technology - FIST) for a proposal with Dev & Linda Gupta Professor Qiangfei Xia (Ricco College of Engineering) on UMA-HU Joint Workshop on Emerging AI Hardware.
- Associate Professor Ling Xiao (FIST) for a proposal with Assistant Professor Donghyun Kim (Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences) on the Development of Intelligent Agricultural Robots.*
- Assistant Professor Milena Lama (Faculty of Advanced Life Science - FALS) for a proposal with Assistant Professor Melody Morris (Department of Polymer Science and Engineering - PSE) on Elucidation of Polyurethane Degradation via High-throughput Experimentation and X-ray Scattering.
- Associate Professor Takayuki Nonoyama (FALS) for a proposal with Associate Professor Reika Katsumata (PSE) on Lignin-derived Carbon Materials for Sustainable Energy Storage.*
*Also budgeted by UMA
Additionally, UMA chose:
- Associate Professor Matthew Moore (Department of Food Science) for a proposal with Professor Tomoyasu Aizawa (FALS, HU) on Understanding the influence of viral capsid structure and dynamics on inactivation and persistence.
- Distinguished Professor Raymond Bradley from the Department of Earth (Geographic & Climate Sciences) for a proposal with Professor Shin Sugiyama (Institute for Low Temperature Science, HU) on Collaboration in Research on the Cryosphere.
- Professor Edward Bryan Coughlin (Department of Polymer Science and Engineering) for a proposal with Professor Toshifumi Satoh (Faculty of Engineering, HU) on Advancing fundamental research in polymers and soft materials towards applications through industrial sponsorship.
(Text provided by the Office for International Collaborations)
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