Rate My Professor Yoko Mitarai

Yoko Mitarai is Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering at The University of Tokyo. She received her Bachelor of Engineering in 1989, Master of Engineering in 1991, and Doctor of Engineering in 1994 from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Her professional career began with a JSPS fellowship as a postdoctoral researcher and visiting researcher at Manchester University in Britain in 1994. In 1995, she joined the National Research Institute for Metals as a researcher, advancing to senior researcher in 1999. Following the institute's reorganization into the National Institute for Materials Science in 2001, she served as group leader from 2006 and deputy director of the Research Center for Structural Materials from 2016. She assumed her current professorial position at The University of Tokyo in 2020.

Professor Mitarai's research focuses on high-temperature materials design and microstructure control to enhance high-temperature strength, creep resistance, and deformation mechanisms. She develops innovative heat-resistant materials, including titanium alloys, shape memory alloys, high-entropy alloys, and niobium alloys, for applications in jet engines and power generation systems. Her work involves processing methods such as heavy forging and 3D additive manufacturing, alongside investigations of mechanical properties at 1000-2000°C using ultra-high-temperature testing equipment. Key keywords include first-principles calculations. Notable publications encompass 'Ir-base refractory superalloys for ultra-high temperatures' (Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 1998), 'Rh-base refractory superalloys for ultra-high temperature use' (Scripta Materialia, 1997), 'Investigations into Ti–(Nb, Ta)–Fe alloys for biomedical applications' (Acta Biomaterialia, 2016), 'Creep Behavior of Ti-6Al-4Nb-4Zr Fabricated by Powder Bed Fusion Using a Laser Beam' (Materials Transactions, 2023), and 'Phase equilibrium and high-temperature mechanical properties of Nb-Si-X ternary alloys' (Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 2023).