Farewell message from Tomoya Naito

Our colleague, Tomoya Naito, has left iTHEMS at the end of September 2025 to join the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Management, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo as a Project Assistant Professor. We are grateful for his many contributions during his time with us and wish him every success in his new position.
Here is a message from Tomoya:

I first joined the Quantum Hadron Physics Laboratory (Hatsuda Lab.) at the Nishina Center in June 2017 as a student trainee, and from that time I also began attending iTHEMS activities. In April 2022, I officially became a member of iTHEMS as an SPDR, and from April to September 2025 I was a JSPS PD. During these three and a half years (or unofficially, more than eight years!), I really enjoyed being a member of iTHEMS. Although I was often away on business trips in the last two and a half years, I have always appreciated the activities of iTHEMS.

My research is on low-energy nuclear physics and quantum many-body problems using density functional theory. Only a few people in iTHEMS are working in this field, but I had many opportunities to learn about other areas such as physics, mathematics, mathematical biology, and machine learning. These experiences gave me new knowledge and even led to new research topics. In particular, during the pandemic, I was not officially a member of iTHEMS, but I still joined many activities and had many discussions with iTHEMS colleagues. These experiences strongly influenced my current research direction. From this April, iTHEMS has been expanding and the atmosphere is also changing. It was a great honor to be a member during such an important period.

In October 2025, I moved to the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, as a Project Assistant Professor. Since RIKEN is still geographically close, I would like to continue joining iTHEMS activities, and I look forward to further interactions with everyone.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all the researchers and assistants of iTHEMS for their kind support.