WPI institutes participate in AAAS conference at San Jose
February 25, 2015
The World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) participated in the 12-16 February annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose.
The meeting, held at the San Jose Convention Center, attracted 11,000 attendees ranging from scientists, parents and children, to both domestic and international media. It is one of the largest scientific meetings that bring together policy makers, researchers, and the public to communicate through approximately 300 scientific sessions, family science day events featuring hands-on activities, and international exhibitions of over 100 organizations.
"This annual event is one of the most widely recognized global science gatherings, with hundreds of diverse scientific sessions and communication opportunities with broad media coverage", said Gerald R. Fink, AAAS President and Program Chair. "The meeting theme--Innovations, Information, and Imaging--focuses on transformations across all disciplines of science and technology brought about by rapid progress in organizing, visualizing, and analyzing data."
During the 3-day booth exhibition, over 350 visitors engaged with WPI outreach managers to learn about the WPI program and its top-level research conducted in each center. Many high school students, PhD candidates, and postdoctoral researchers were curious to find out about career options in Japan, as well as specific questions pertaining to the scientific results discovered at each institute.
The Japanese delegation also included Tsukuba University and Hokkaido University exhibiting across from the WPI booth; members of Kyoto University Research Administration, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, RIKEN, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, and the University of Tokyo also participated in the event.
The next AAAS meeting will be held 11-15 February 2016 in Washington, DC.
by Tomoka Aiyama
Photos
The venue: San Jose Convention Center
The WPI booth
Visitors in front of WPI poster panels
WPI novelty goods and business cards
Participants reading iCeMS publications
Over 250 scientific sessions were given
Family science days featuring hands-on activities for the public
About 
WPI
The World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) launched in 2007 by the MEXT and supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), employs talented researchers from various scientific fields. The centers, funded on a 10-year basis, aims to create a vibrant and international environment to facilitate interdisciplinary research. 2,497 papers have been published as of 2011, with 5.1% of papers of top-1% productivity during the years 2007-2010. There are currently nine centers, hosted by Kyoto University, Osaka University, Kyushu University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Nagoya University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Tsukuba University.
About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in Philadelphia in 1848 and has 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.