Professor Takeshi Tsuji receives IUGG Award

Dr. Tsuji Takeshi, Professor of the Faculty of Engineering and the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I²CNER) at Kyushu University, has been awarded the Early Career Scientist Award of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG).

IUGG is a non-governmental, scientific organization, established in 1919. IUGG is one of the 40 scientific Unions and Associations presently grouped within the International Council. As a member of the International Science council, it is the largest institution dedicated to the international promotion and coordination of scientific studies of Earth (physical, chemical, and mathematical) and its environment in space.

IUGG holds General Assemblies every four years and presents awards to early career scientists who have achieved on excellent performance in their research on Earth and space sciences international research cooperation.

Less than 10 scientists from around the world will be chosen for the awards and Professor Futoshi Takahashi, Faculty of Science at Kyushu University has received the award last time in 2014. 
In 2018, Professor Tsuji is the only Japanese researcher to receive this year’s award. Kyushu University become the first university in the world to win consecutive awards of IUGG, which can symbolize its excellent performance in the research on Earth and space sciences among the world's best universities.

Professor Tsuji has been chosen for the Early Career Scientist Award in the field of Seismology for his innovative and interdisciplinary works. He has developed new geophysical exploration methods to estimate earthquake faults, methane hydrate, hydrothermal ore deposits and geothermal reservoirs. He has characterized earthquake faults in the Nankai Trough and in the Japan Trench. His findings contribute to understanding of the hypocenter distribution and tsunami mechanisms. Recently he has been interested in continuous geophysical monitoring of earth crust and resource reservoirs. Indeed, his group succeeded to reveal dynamic behaviors of crust during the earthquake and volcanic eruption (Figure 1). In addition to such geophysical approaches, he has elucidated fluid behaviors within digitalized rock using computational approach (i.e., digital rock physics), because subsurface dynamic behavior is usually related to fluid flow. He further develops a geophysical approach to explore the Moon subsurface structures.