Xiaodong You, Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, graduated in March, 2020.
I spent nine years pursuing Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD degrees in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, at Osaka Prefecture University (OPU), Japan. During my undergraduate period, I joined a university club named “Kai-no-ken” (the student club for overseas agricultural activities), which made up the most worthwhile experience of my student life. This experience did not only help me adapt to the new environment and improve my Japanese speaking skills, but also contributed to forming my closest social networks and lifelong friendships. During my Master and PhD courses, I was enrolled in a doctoral program named “Graduated Course for System-inspired Leaders in Material Science” (SiMS, http://sims-program.osakafu-u.ac.jp/eng/about/), where industry and academia jointly support students who dream of translating their high-level research promotion capabilities into a driving force for the industrial world and becoming global leaders. I learned how to connect my basic research results to the development of new industries from the SiMS program. Since the students joining the SiMS program are from different majors, we were able to communicate, collaborate and share ideas from a different professional standpoint. In addition, the SiMS program provided me two important opportunities which were including three months laboratory experiences at Hoshi University at Tokyo and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, and bore all the costs. My perspective was broadened through these laboratory rotation and studying abroad, and enabled me to develop my ideas in the research.

I am very thankful to all of those people who gave me the support and guidance throughout my doctoral studies. Especially, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Motoaki Tojo, who has always been very supportive, from the start to the end of my studies. I studied “Development of vermicompost from moso-bamboo, and analysis of its mechanisms of plant-disease suppressiveness” in Prof. Tojo’s lab for 6 years. With the aid of Prof. Tojo, I was awarded the JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (DC2) of the MEXT scholarship.

After graduating from OPU in March, 2020, I got a permanent job at Kumiai Chemical Industry, a comprehensive agrochemical manufacturer, as a salesperson in April, 2020. I am currently in charge of sales and marketing of rice herbicide products for China. I was deeply impressed from my manager’s message which including the words “the objective of our work is to provide solutions for farmers rather than sales”. Now I am enjoying the process of absorbing new knowledge associating with rice herbicides. The task also includes Chinese market research through web meetings with the Chinese distributors. This job is challenging but rewarding, because the products I have been involved in will contribute to the development of agriculture around the world and help farmers increase crop production.