GCOE Appointed Professor
Sato, Hirokazu
Research Fields: voice language information processing, Japanese phonetics and metrics, voice perception, voice language databases
Career summary: has been Director of the Voice Acoustics Technology Center at NTT and NTT Advanced Technology and professor by special appointment at the Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, and took up his current position in April 2008. At NTT, he was in charge of basic and applied research into voice information processing and the commercialization of voice and acoustics technology. At the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in the 21st Century COE Program “Framework for Systematization and Application of Large-scale Knowledge Resources” he was involved in voice linguistic analysis and research of the classical literature and visual arts of Japan.
Membership of academic societies: Phonetic Society of Japan, Acoustical Society of Japan, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
Akagi, Osamu (～3,2010)
Research Field: Southeast Asia regional research
Career summary: has been professor at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies, dean at the same university, involved in the Japan Student Services Organization (in charge of international exchange, head of the Tokyo International Exchange Center) and took up his current position in April 2008. During this time he was lecturer at Chulalongkorn University and Thammasat University (1975-1977), a specialist investigator at the Embassy of Japan in the Kingdom of Thailand (1985-1987), head of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Bangkok Office (1992-1993), and chairman of the Japanese Society for Thai Studies (July 2003 – June 2007). He is professor emeritus at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies, a director of The Japanese Society for Thai Studies, and the representative of the Japan-Thailand Club.
Prizes won: Second Asia-Pacific Awards: the Special Prize (1990), Order of the White Elephant, Third Class (Kingdom of Thailand: 1994)
Membership of academic societies: The Japanese Society for Thai Studies, Japan Society for Southeast Asian Studies, Japan Association for Comparative Politics, Japan Association for Asian Studies, The Siam Society
König, Christa（～9,2009）
Research Field: Research on Morphosyntax, Description Methods in African Languages
Career summary: Tutorial assistant, Department of African Studies, University of Cologne (1987‐1992), Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, University of Zurich (1994‐1995), Post-Doc scholarship, University of Cologne, Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft (DFG) (1995‐1997), Habilitation scholarship, University Bayreuth (DFG) (1997‐1999), Privatdozent University Frankfurt a M. (2000), Honorary visiting fellow at the Research Center for Lingustic Typology, La Trobe University, Melbourne (February ‐ March 2002), Honorary visiting fellow at the Dartmouth College Hanover New Hampshire (April ‐ July 2002), Honorary visiting fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. (September ‐ June 2005) Apl. Professor for African Linguistics, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universtity Frankfurt a.M. (2006); Prizes won: Word classes in Ik. German Research Society (DFG) Post-Doctorate Scholarship, Department of African Studies, University of Cologne.(1995‐1997), Case in Ik. German Research Society (DFG) Habilitation Scholarship, Department of African Studies and African Languages, University of Bayreuth. (1997‐1999), Case in Africa. German Research Society (DFG), Scholarship, University Frankfurt. (2001‐2003), Grammar of !Xun. German Research Society (DFG), Scholarship, University Frankfurt. (2006‐2008)