37 Notable alumni of
Kyushu University
Updated:
Kyushu University is 351st in the world, 66th in Asia, and 28th in Japan by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 37 notable alumni from Kyushu University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Junko Tabei
- Occupations
- explorermountaineer
- Biography
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Junko Tabei was a Japanese mountaineer, author and teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
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Tetsu Nakamura
- Occupations
- physician
- Biography
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Tetsu Nakamura, also known as Kaka Murad (Pashto: کاکا مراد, transl. "Uncle Nakamura"), (15 September 1946 – 4 December 2019), was a Japanese physician and honorary Afghan citizen who headed Peace Japan Medical Services (PMS), an aid group known as Peshawar-kai in Japanese.
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Guo Moruo
- Occupations
- historianarchaeologistactorwriteranthropologist
- Biography
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Guo Moruo, courtesy name Dingtang, was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official. A prominent Chinese writer in the May Fourth Movement and later in the Mao era, he was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. The persecution led him to denounce his colleagues and his past work and demand that all of it be burned, an act for which he was labeled "shameless". He regained prominence in the 1970s and is generally well-regarded in modern China.
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Yasushi Inoue
- Occupations
- writerpoetnovelistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Yasushi Inoue was a Japanese writer of novels, short stories, poetry and essays, noted for his historical and autobiographical fiction. His most acclaimed works include The Bullfight (Tōgyū, 1949), The Roof Tile of Tempyō (Tenpyō no iraka, 1957) and Tun-huang (Tonkō, 1959).
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Ichiro Nakagawa
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Ichiro Nakagawa was a Japanese politician from Hokkaidō. He was a significant leader of the right-wing of the Liberal Democratic Party.
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Koichi Wakata
- Occupations
- engineeraircraft pilotastronaut
- Biography
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Koichi Wakata is a Japanese engineer and an astronaut working for Axiom Space. Wakata retired from JAXA in 2024 after a career in spaceflight spanning nearly two decades. He logged over 500 days in space across five missions: three aboard the Space Shuttle, one on the Soyuz, and one on the Crew Dragon. His missions included three long-duration stays on the International Space Station (ISS) and two short-duration flights—one to the ISS and one aboard the Space Shuttle. Notably, during Expedition 39, he became the first Japanese commander of the ISS.
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Chen Yu-jen
- Enrolled in Kyushu University
- 1995-1998 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Chen Yu-jen, also known as Jessica Chen, is a Taiwanese politician and lawyer who serves as a Member of the Legislative Yuan. She was previously a member of the Kinmen County Council.
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Tadatomo Yoshida
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Tadatomo Yoshida is a Japanese politician currently serving as a member of the House of Councillors for Ōita at-large district; he previously represented the National PR block, having been elected on two separate occasions in 2010 and in 2019. He previously served as a member of the Ōita Prefectural Assembly from 2000 to 2010.
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Shōzaburō Jimi
- Occupations
- politicianphysician
- Biography
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Shozaburo Jimi is a former Japanese politician of the now defunct People's New Party, and was a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet (national legislature).
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Genichi Taguchi
- Occupations
- engineerstatistician
- Biography
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Genichi Taguchi was a Japanese engineer and statistician. From the 1950s on, Taguchi developed a methodology for applying statistics to improve the quality of manufactured goods. Taguchi methods have been controversial among some conventional Western statisticians, but others have accepted many of the concepts introduced by him as valid extensions to the body of knowledge.
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Katsuto Momii
- Occupations
- businesspersonbadminton executive and administrator
- Biography
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Katsuto Momii is a Japanese businessman who was elected as NHK's 21st Director-General on 20 December 2013. He worked for Mitsui & Co. from 1965 until 2005. From 2005 until 2011, he worked as President and representative director of Unisys Japan.
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Toshio Shimao
- Occupations
- writernovelistkamikazescreenwriter
- Biography
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Toshio Shimao was a Japanese novelist. He has been called a "writer's writer", which is used as both a compliment and criticism.
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Nurdin Abdullah
- Enrolled in Kyushu University
- Graduated with agricultural science
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Nurdin Abdullah is an Indonesian politician and academic who was the 8th governor of South Sulawesi and regent of Bantaeng Regency between 2008 and 2018. He was arrested for corruption in 2021, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, though he was released in August 2023.
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Hakaru Hashimoto
- Occupations
- physicianpathologistsurgeon
- Biography
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Hakaru Hashimoto was a Japanese doctor and medical scientist of the Meiji and Taishō periods. He is best known for publishing the first description of the disease that was later named Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
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Yasuhiro Yoshiura
- Occupations
- film producerscreenwriterfilm editordesigneranimator
- Biography
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Yasuhiro Yoshiura is a Japanese writer and director of animated short films. Many of his works such as Pale Cocoon and Time of Eve have garnered awards and featured at film festivals. His production studio is called Studio Rikka.
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Tomihisa Taue
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Tomihisa Taue, is a Japanese politician and the mayor of Nagasaki, the capital city of Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan from 2007 to 2023.
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Hsu Shih-hsien
- Years
- 1908-1983 (aged 75)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Hsu Shih-hsien was a Taiwanese physician, academic and politician.
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Junzo Shono
- Occupations
- writernovelist
- Biography
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Junzō Shōno was a Japanese novelist. A native of Osaka, he began writing novels after World War II. He won the 1954 Akutagawa Prize for his book Purusaido Shokei (Poolside Scene). Shōno's other award-winning books include Seibutsu (Still Life), for which he won the Shinchosha literary prize, Yube no Kumo (Evening Clouds), which was awarded the 1965 Yomiuri Prize, and Eawase (Picture Cards) which took the Noma literary prize.
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Gao Zongwu
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Gao Zongwu was a Chinese diplomat in the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was best known for playing a key role in negotiations between China and Japan from 1937 to 1940 that initially intended to bring about a peace agreement between them, but which led to the defection of prominent statesman Wang Jingwei and the establishment of the pro-Japanese collaborationist Reorganized National Government of China. Disillusioned with the harsh terms imposed on the collaborationist regime by the Japanese, he released the full documents of the outline of the Basic Treaty that Japan demanded as the basis of its relations with the new regime, which was a major propaganda coup for Chiang Kai-shek and a blow for Wang's fledgling government that had just been exposed as just another puppet state. Gao had originally been slated to serve as the vice foreign minister of the Wang Jingwei regime before his defection back to Chiang in January 1940.
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Kazuchika Iwata
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Kazuchika Iwata is a Japanese politician who has been serving as a member of the House of Representatives since 2012. He has also served as the State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and State Minister of Cabinet Office.
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Teijirō Furukawa
- Occupations
- bureaucratDeputy Chief Cabinet Secretary
- Biography
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Teijirō Furukawa was a Japanese official who served as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1995 to 2003. As such he was the senior bureaucrat under five Prime Ministers. Before that he served as Administrative Vice Minister of Health and Welfare from 1993 to 1994.
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Tetsumi Takara
- Occupations
- politicianlegal counselor
- Biography
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Tetsumi Takara is a Japanese politician currently serving as a member of the National Diet in the House of Councillors. He was elected on July 27, 2019, representing the Okinawa at-large district which encompasses the entirety of Okinawa Prefecture.
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Makoto Oniki
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Makoto Oniki is a Japanese politician from the Liberal Democratic Party.
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Kosuke Morita
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Kōsuke Morita is a Japanese experimental nuclear physicist, known as the leader of the Japanese team that discovered nihonium (element 113). He currently holds a joint appointment as a professor at Kyushu University’s Graduate School of Science and as director of the Super Heavy Element Research Group at Riken's Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science.
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Asad Majeed Khan
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
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Asad Majeed Khan is a Pakistani diplomat who served as Pakistan's Ambassador to United States from January 2019 to 2022. He previously served as a Foreign Secretary of Pakistan and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Japan and Pakistan's Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union.
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Terufumi Sasaki
- Occupations
- surgeon
- Biography
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Terufumi Sasaki was a surgeon at the Red Cross hospital in Hiroshima and was situated 1,650 yards (1,510 m) from the hypocenter of the Little Boy explosion on August 6, 1945. Twenty-five years old that year, out of an initial 30 interviewed, he became one of the six central characters found in John Hersey's 1946 story for The New Yorker magazine that was subsequently published as the book Hiroshima. He lived at his family home in Mukaihara district prior to the detonation and practiced medicine in communities with poor health care without a permit.
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Tenrei Ōta
- Occupations
- politicianobstetrician
- Biography
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Tenrei Ōta, born Takeo Ōta (太田 武夫 Ōta Takeo, 1900–1985) was a Japanese obstetrician-gynaecologist and politician. He invented the Ōta ring, an early intrauterine device (IUD). Throughout his life, he was an outspoken advocate for contraception, abortion, and euthanasia. Some of his beliefs were rooted in eugenics, and during his time as a member of Japan's House of Representatives, he drafted and co-sponsored the Eugenic Protection Law.
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Takashi Gojobori
- Occupations
- geneticistbiologist
- Biography
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Takashi Gojobori is a Japanese molecular biologist who is vice director of the National Institute of Genetics (NIG) and the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) at NIG in Mishima, Japan. Gojobori is a distinguished professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. He is a professor of bioscience and acting director at the Computational Bioscience Research Center at KAUST.
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Seiji Shinkai
- Occupations
- university teacherchemist
- Biography
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Seiji Shinkai is a Japanese chemist and professor of Kyushu University, and emeritus professor.
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Shinya Izumi
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Shinya Izumi is a retired Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, who served as the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission in Shinzo Abe's cabinet from August 2007 to August 2008. He also served as a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan (parliament).
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Toshibumi Tanaka
- Occupations
- trade unionistpolitician
- Biography
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Toshibumi Tanaka was the first governor of Hokkaido (1947–1959). He was a graduate of Kyushu University.
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Yoichiro Kawaguchi
- Occupations
- visual artist
- Biography
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Yoichiro Kawaguchi is a Japanese computer graphics artist and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.
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Richard Dietz
- Occupations
- judge
- Biography
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Richard Donald Dietz is a judge on the North Carolina Supreme Court, having been elected in 2022. He previously served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals after being appointed by Governor Pat McCrory to fill the vacant seat created by the elevation of Robert N. Hunter, Jr. to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
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Tomoyoshi Watanabe
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Tomoyoshi Watanabe is a retired Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, who served as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Kasuya District, Fukuoka and graduate of Kyushu University, he worked at the Ministry of Transport from 1964 to 1994. After teaching at Fukuoka University, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1996.
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Sun Haiyan
- Occupations
- diplomatpolitician
- Biography
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Sun Haiyan is a Chinese diplomat and politician who has served as the deputy head of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party since June 2023. She previously served as the Chinese Ambassador to Singapore from May 2022 to July 2023.
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Babak Hodjat
- Occupations
- computer scientistartificial intelligence researcher
- Biography
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Babak Hodjat is a British computer scientist, entrepreneur, and writer. He was the co-founder and CEO of Sentient Technologies and now holds the position of Chief Technology Officer AI at Cognizant. He is a specialist in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In 1998 Hodjat co-founded Dejima Inc and served as CEO and CTO, his patented work on artificial intelligence led to the technology used by Apple for their digital assistant Siri.
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Shanta Dutta
- Enrolled in Kyushu University
- In 2006 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- microbiologist
- Biography
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Dr. Shanta Dutta is an Indian medical researcher of gastrointestinal diseases and served ICMR- National Institute for Research in Bacterial Infections as the director during July 2016 to November 2024. She joined the then ICMR- NICED in 1994 and acquired over 30 years of research experiences in infectious Diseases especially enteric disease (especially cholera and typhoid fever) research. Her research interests included both basic and applied field encompassing prevention and control of acute diarrheal diseases, characterization of emerging pathogens, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), disease pathogenesis, developing alternative therapeutics and point of care in-vitro diagnostics for enteric infections, application of AI & Analytics. Additionally she has experience working on Viral infectious diseases, HIV/ AIDS, environmental surveillance for infectious disease research, Vaccine development and implementation research through trials, Public Health and clinical research.
