About Mako Nakamura

This is one of the laboratories where I interviewed for a job in my fourth year of the doctoral program, and the first female Principle Investigator I met in my life. When I was a graduate student at Osaka University, Dr. Beckerle gave an invited lecture as a symposium presenter, and I was in charge of picking her up at the airport. Dr. Beckerle herself picked me up at the Salt Lake City airport. I got lost-baggage and did not have anything for the next day. She took me to a department store for shopping and talked to me friendly. I was surprised to know how she naturally manages to balance her research and family life, which was still rare in Japan. The next day, after a presentation on my research, Dr. Beckerle passionately explained the research themes. I watched her feet rise from the floor to the wall, perhaps heated up as she spoke. I was offered a postdoctoral position, but I chose a different lab because I wanted to gain experience working not only at the cellular level but also in vivo animal models. Later, I learned that she became the director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which deepened my respect for her.

While I was working as a postdoctoral fellow in the US, Dr. Swan was invited and I had the opportunity to attend her seminar. It was the first time I learned about the technique of scientific writing from a professional. Dr. Swan has a degree in biochemistry and a career at Princeton University in the specialized field of scientific English. I was amazed at her unique career path that I had never found anyone in japan and impressed by the clarity of the English she spoke, explaining the different verb choices and expressions when writing papers in a way that was easy to understand for researchers whose native language is not English. I also found the TED Talk!

The shock I felt when I read her books “Child Poverty” and “Child Poverty II” is still vivid. As a researcher, I was extremely impressed by her data-based stories and logical structure, introducing poverty indicators that were not common in Japanese society at the time. Although our research fields are different and I have never met with her, whenever I see Dr. Abe’s activities in the media, etc., I feel proud of her as a fellow researcher and sincerely admire the development of her research.

I happened to come across her exhibition several years ago and was impressed by her fine and beautiful works and the technique of the grass art. I was impressed by it. Although her works are small in size, the way she combines them to create a work of art with a high degree of perfection is similar to the steps of being particular about each piece of data, combining them into a figure, and assembling them into a thesis, and I am encouraged by Ms. Enami’s work.

She is a rare female painter active in this period (Picasso, Matisse, etc.). I greatly respect the fact that she was a successful and financially independent female painter by exploring her own way of painting, and I am also encouraged by the uniqueness of her work. I am encouraged by the fact that she was able to continue to create works of art using her own characteristics and strengths at the time.

He was a painter of the Edo period. Dragon Gate (Ryumonzu) is composed of three paintings (it seems to be called a pair of three paintings), and the carp in the middle is my first choice. At first, I could not distinguish what it depicted. I was impressed by the idea of the white-out of the carp climbing up the waterfall, and when I looked closely, I saw that even the scales of the carp were drawn in between the white-outs. I was impressed by the idea. I feel that establishing the own way of expression and the way he play with ideas is similar to my research, and I use it as a model for my “Think out of the box” way of thinking.