Dr. Yoshiaki Nakano graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo in 1982, and completed the Master's Program in Electronic Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo in 1984, and the Doctoral Program in Electronic Engineering in 1987, and he earned a Ph.D. degree in Engineering. He was appointed as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo in the same year, was promoted to a full-time lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering in 1988, an associate professor in the Faculty of Engineering in 1992, and a professor in the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo in 2000. After that, he was reassigned to a professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology of the University of Tokyo in 2002, and served as the Center's director general from 2010 to 2013. He returned to the Graduate School of Engineering as a professor at the University of Tokyo in 2013 and continues his educational and research activities to this day.

During this time, he has been researching optoelectronic devices based on compound semiconductors, especially semiconductor lasers, light control devices, and photonic integrated circuits, and has achieved many excellent results. In the 1980s, he succeeded in prototyping a gain-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser, and contributed to the subsequent progress of distributed feedback (DFB) lasers. In the 1990s, he shifted his research focus to elucidating the mechanism of organometallic vapor phase epitaxy using organic group-V materials and its application to InP-based monolithic photonic integrated circuits and realized the optical wavelength channel selector circuits, etc. In the 2000s, he conducted pioneering research on digital photonic devices and circuits such as all-optical flip-flops and optical logic gates. In the 2010s, he proposed and researched original integrated optical devices for new generation optical communication, optical signal processing, and optical imaging such as optical phased array circuits, Stokes vector optical transmission/reception circuits and optical unitary transformation circuits, and has been a world leader. These achievements have led to numerous awards, including the Japan Society of Applied Physics Optical Paper Award (1992), IEICE’s Fellow Title (2005), The Ichimura Prize in Science (2007), Industry-Academia-Government Collaboration Merit Award Prime Minister's Award (2007), IEICE’s Electronics Society Award (2007), Kenjiro Sakurai Memorial Special Prize of Optoelectronics Industry and Technology Development Association (2007), title of Fellow the Japan Society of Applied Physics (2009), and Compound Semiconductor Week IPRM Award (2019).

As for activities at the IEICE, he has been active as a Member and Secretary of the Technical Committee related to optical integrated circuits in the second term of its inauguration, from 1988 (The name at the time was the Technical Committee on Integrated Optoelectronics) to the present day (Current name is the Technical Committee on Photonic Integration and Silicon Photonics.) and became the Chair in 2004. From 2007 to 2008, he was the Chair of the Technical Committees Type 1 on LQE and PN, and the Editor-in-Chief of IEICE Transactions C on Electronics. After this, he became the General Co-Chair of the International Conference OECC in 2013, the President of the IEICE Electronics Society in 2014, and the Vice President of the IEICE in 2017, and has been working to manage and promote the IEICE. In addition to the IEICE, he has held important positions in the IEEE, the Japan Institute of Electronics Packaging, the Japan Society of Applied Physics, and many international conferences, and has contributed to the promotion of electronic information and communication-related academics at home and abroad. Currently, as a Member of the Science Council of Japan (Section III), he is the Chair of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Committee under the Council, tackles various issues surrounding electrical and electronic engineering, and plays a central role in the activities that connect Japan's electrical and electronic engineering associations, including the IEICE.

As mentioned above, Dr. Nakano’s achievements in academic research and community related to electronic information and communication for many years has been truly outstanding, and we are convinced that Dr. Nakano is suitable for presenting the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award of the IEICE.