Kenitchiro Itami
Nagoya University, Japan
Kenichiro Itami (born in 1971) received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University under the guidance of Prof. Yoshihiko Ito. He began his academic career at Kyoto University as an Assistant Professor in 1998, then moved to Nagoya University to become an Associate Professor in 2005, and promoted to Full Professor in 2008. Since 2012, he is the Director of the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) in Nagoya University. In 2013, he was selected as the Director of JST-ERATO Itami Molecular Nanocarbon Project.
The ultimate goal of the Itami group is to develop game-changing molecules, such as problem-solving functional molecules (“transformative molecules”) and beautiful molecules. With such goal in mind, the work of Itami group has centered on catalyst-enabling synthetic chemistry with broad directions including molecular nanocarbon materials, C-H activation catalysts, medicinal chemistry, and plant chemical biology.
>300 papers (h-index 60), >90 patent application, >350 plenary/invited lecturers
Representative awards and honors:
The Guthikonda Lecturer, Stanford University (2018), The Roland K. Pettit Centennial Lecturer, University of Texas, Austin (2018), CSJ Award for Creative Work, The Chemical Society of Japan (2018), Highly Cited Researchers 2017, Clarivate Analytics (2017), ICI Distinguished Lecturer, University of Calgary, Canada (2017), The Holger Erdtman Lecture, KTH, Sweden (2016), The Nagase Prize (2016), Treat B. Johnson Lecture, Yale University (2016), Ta-Shue Chou Lectureship Award, Academia Sinica (2016), R. C. Fuson Visiting Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2015), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, American Chemical Society (2015), Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship Award (2015), Nankai University Lectureship Award (2014), The Aldrich Lectureship Award, Emory University (2014), The JSPS Prize (2014), Novartis Chemistry Lectureship Award (2013), Mukaiyama Award (2013), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK (2012), German Innovation Award (2012), Novartis-MIT Lectureship Award, MIT, USA (2012)
