On the morning of November 4, 2024, the appointment ceremony of Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi of the University of Tokyo as a guest professor of Southeast University was held in the conference room 304 of the college. Professor Juan Gerardo Oliva Salinas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Professor Kok Keong Choong of the University of Science Malaysia, Professor Yang Qingshan, Dean of the School of Civil Engineering of Chongqing University, Professor Jan Belis of Ghent University, Professor Wang Chen, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Office of Southeast University, Secretary Liu Jing of the Party Committee of the School of Civil Engineering, Professor Cai Jianguo, Assistant Dean, Professor SeungDeog Kim, Professor Chen Yao and other teachers and students attended the ceremony. The ceremony was hosted by Professor Cai Jianguo, Assistant Dean of the School of Civil Engineering.
Secretary Liu Jing expressed her welcome to Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi in her speech and briefly introduced the basic situation of the college. Secretary Liu pointed out that the appointment of Professor Kawaguchi as a guest professor of Southeast University is not only another expansion of the college's academic team, but also an important step in the international development of the college. She hopes that the two sides can establish a long-term mutually beneficial partnership, promote the construction of civil engineering disciplines through academic exchanges and cooperation, improve the overall level of the discipline, and promote the high-quality development of the discipline.
Deputy Director Wang Chen presented Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi with a guest professor appointment letter and gave him the Southeast University badge. In his speech, Deputy Director Wang Chen expressed his welcome and gratitude to Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi for being appointed as a guest professor of Southeast University, and hoped to take this opportunity to strengthen academic exchanges and cooperation and inject new vitality into the university's discipline development and talent training.
Afterwards, Professor SeungDeog Kim briefly introduced Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi's research direction and achievements, and highly praised the scientific research achievements of Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi. Finally, Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi talked about his relationship with Southeast University and the School of Civil Engineering, expressed his gratitude for the recognition and trust given by Southeast University, and said that he would further deepen academic exchanges and cooperation with Southeast University in the future and maintain a long-term friendly cooperative relationship.
After the appointment ceremony, Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi gave an academic report entitled "Natural Disaster and Large Public Space", focusing on the new design concepts and methods of lightweight structures covering large public spaces, and detailing the stability of such structures under natural disasters, possible damage and corresponding protection measures, especially emphasizing the damage modes and protection methods of high-altitude non-structural components during earthquakes.
It is reported that Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi works at the Institute of Production Technology, University of Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the Department of Architecture of Waseda University in Japan in 1985 with a bachelor's degree, and then obtained a master's degree and a doctorate degree from the University of Tokyo in 1988 and 1991 respectively. His main research directions are deployable structures, tensegrity structures, structural seismic isolation, etc. He has published more than 300 academic papers, more than 20 monographs, and has won various awards in the field of international building structures. He was the dean of the Department of Architecture of the University of Tokyo, and is currently the vice president of the International Association of Thin Shells and Spatial Structures (IASS), the vice president of the Architectural Society of Japan, etc. Professor Ken'ichi Kawaguchi has visited Southeast University 8 times since 2013, and has a long-term cooperative foundation with the National Prestressed Engineering Technology Research Center of Southeast University. Since 2009, he has jointly trained a number of doctoral and master students and published a number of journal papers.
