On January 8, Assistant Professor SUZUKI Etsuji of the Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences was awarded the title of "Research Associate Professor". An award ceremony was held on February 19 at the president’s office, where President MAKINO Hirofumi presented a certificate to Assistant Professor Suzuki and conferred on him the title of Research Associate Professor in the presence of Vice President and Executive Director for Research NASU Yasutomo.

Research Associate Professor Suzuki is conducting theoretical research on causal inference methods to apply them to real-world data such as large-scale epidemiological research. Causal inference has increasingly been recognized as a primary task of data science, providing a theoretical foundation of AI. Research Associate Professor Suzuki is collaborating with Cypher (the cyber-physical engineering informatics research core), which was established at the Organization for Global Advanced Interdisciplinary Sciences in Okayama University on April 2, 2020. He aims to find unique ways to respond to diverse social needs by utilizing AI and data science, and to further promote interdisciplinary research across fields and departments.

〇About the Research Associate Professor System
Okayama University actively provides university-wide support to researchers with outstanding achievement in their fields. As part of our comprehensive support programs to foster young researchers and strengthen research capabilities, we introduced a “Research Professor” system since academic year 2018 with the aim of encouraging lecturers and associate professors to become lead researchers (Principal Investigators) in their fields of interest. This system encourages recognized faculty members to pursue their research without distraction by providing incentives such as increased funding or research aids.
In 2020, "Research Associate Professor" system was established for outstanding Assistant Professors and Lecturers.

Researchers who have been awarded the title of Research Associate Professor:
HUANG PENG, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences
TAKAHASHI Ken, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences
MATSUMOTO Yoshinori, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences
HARA EMILIO SATOSHI, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences
KATAOKA Takahiro, Graduate School of Health Sciences
MIYAMOTO Yuki, Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science
SHIEN Tadahiko, Okayama University Hospital
OHASHI Kadoaki, Okayama University Hospital