Farewell message from Yuta Sekino

Our colleague, Yuta Sekino, will be joining the Institute for Advanced Research at Nagoya University as a YLC Assistant Professor starting April 1st, 2026. We will all miss him and wish him the best of luck in this new endeavor.

Here is a message from Yuta:

I have been at RIKEN for seven years.
Starting this April, I will join the Institute for Advanced Research at Nagoya University as a YLC Assistant Professor.

I first joined the Quantum Hadron Physics Laboratory (Hatsuda Lab.) at the Nishina Center in April 2019 as a JSPS fellow, and from that time I also began attending iTHEMS activities.
In October 2021, I moved to the Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory (Nagataki Lab.) at RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research and started a concurrent position in iTHEMS.
In July 2024, I officially became a member of iTHEMS as a postdoctoral researcher associated with RIKEN Quantum, and a concurrent member in Hamzaki Hakubi Research Team.
During my seven years at RIKEN, I have greatly enjoyed the research environment embracing the iTHEMS spirit of "under one roof."

Since I was an undergraduate student, I have been interested in interdisciplinary studies because my main research field, cold atoms, is strongly influenced by other subfields of physics, such as solid-state, nuclear, and particle physics.
Therefore, I have greatly enjoyed interactions with researchers not only in physics, but also in mathematics, biology, and data science.
I have also appreciated the availability of quantum computing resources.

Although I am moving to Nagoya University, I will remain affiliated as a visiting scientist.
I would like to continue participating in 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 throughout my time at RIKEN.