Professor Emerita, University of Tokyo
Former Vice President, Science Council of Japan

Hiroko Akiyama, a gerontologist, is professor of emerita at the University of Tokyo and the former vice president of Science Council of Japan.　Professor Akiyama has conducted a number of cross-national surveys and is widely recognized as an expert on issues of global aging. She is known for thelong-running research on the elderly in Japan—tracking the aging patterns of approximately 6,000 Japanese elderly for 30 years. Recently she initiated social experiment projects that pioneer to re-design communities to meet the needs of the highly aged society,and Kamakura Living Lab, a platform for co-creation among users, industry, government and academia. She started the Institute of Gerontology at University of Tokyo in 2006.  Professor Akiyama received Ph.D. in psychology from University of Illinois, the United States.