I was born in Fukuoka, and grew up in Hiroshima, Japan. I have loved drawing since as early as I can remember and I have always been curious of everything. I was fascinated by "theory of everything" and majored in particle physics (earned PhD in 2012.) The long journey to PhD made me wonder what is science and what is human and I decided to change to anthropology (For me, it was not a big leap. I just changed the scale of the subject from "the origin of the universe" to "the origin of human.") 

 

While completing my education, I have been working as a freelance illustrator and contributing to research papers and educational materials. I realized that the more I learn, the more I can create because science always inspires me. My artistic skills were self-acquired, until I started taking the certificate program in Natural Science Illustration at the University of Washington in 2014.

 

Although I am not actively conducting research anymore, I want to call myself a scientist because I always love to pursue knowledge. I want to call myself a naturalist because I love nature and natural history. And of course, I want to call myself an illustrator to be an "artist as a service of science."