Rate My Professor Yuko Okamoto

Yuko Okamoto is Professor Emeritus in the Theoretical Biophysics Laboratory of the Department of Physics at the Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University. He also serves as Specially Appointed Professor in the Global Multi-Campus Institute and as Invited Faculty in the Data Science Research Division of the Information Technology Center at the same university, along with roles as Senior Visiting Scientist at RIKEN. Okamoto earned a B.S.-M.S. from Brown University in 1979 as a Grew Foundation Scholar and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1984. His early career included a postdoctoral research associate position at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1984 to 1986, followed by assistant and associate professor roles at Nara Women's University until 1995. He then held an associate professor position at the Institute for Molecular Science from 1995 to 2005 before joining Nagoya University as professor in 2005, a role he held until 2022.

Okamoto's research focuses on biophysics, computational physics, and computational chemistry, with emphasis on developing generalized-ensemble algorithms such as the multicanonical algorithm, simulated tempering, and replica-exchange methods to study biomolecular systems. These methods address challenges in sampling conformational phase space for applications including protein structure prediction, protein folding, structural changes under high pressure, drug docking free energy calculations, amyloid fibril formation, and simulations of nucleic acids, oligosaccharides, and lipid bilayers. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010 for his contributions to computational methodologies for biomolecules and served as Overseas Visiting Scholar at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, in 2011. Okamoto has held joint appointments in structural biology and high-performance computing centers and contributed to international academic exchanges, including student programs with institutions abroad.