Seiya Kobatake is Professor of Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka Metropolitan University, received his Ph.D. (1996) degree from Osaka City University. He engaged as Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Akron, U.S.A (1996-1997). He joined the group of Prof. M. Irie, as Researcher of CREST, JST in 1998. He was Research Associate of the Graduate School of Engineering at Kyushu University in 2000-2004. He joined the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka City University as Associate Professor in 2004 and was promoted to Professor of Materials Chemistry in 2011. His affiliation changed to Osaka Metropolitan University due to university integration in April 2022. His current research interests include solid state photochromic reactions, photomechanical materials, and the application of photochromic materials.
Hidehiro Uekusa is Professor of School of Science at the Institute of Science Tokyo, born in 1964 in Tokyo. He earned his B.S. (1987), M.S. (1989), and Ph.D. (1992) in Chemistry from Keio University. He joined the Department of Chemistry at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1992 as a Research Associate, where he served until 1999. He was then appointed Associate Professor in 1999 and promoted to Professor in 2024. Following the university merger in October 2024, his affiliation transitioned to the Institute of Science Tokyo. His primary research area is chemical crystallography. His current research interests encompass: 1) Crystal structure and properties design of pharmaceutical crystals, 2) Analysis of crystalline state reactions, 3) Crystal structure analysis from powder diffraction data. He was honored with the Research Award from the Crystallographic Society of Japan in 2012.