KENZO NAKAMURA
Dr. Kenzo Nakamura received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1968 and later his Ph.D. degree in 1973 from the University of Tokyo. In 1973, Dr. Nakamura became a Research Associate (Joshu) in the Physics Department at the same university. Dr. Nakamura joined the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (KEK) as an Associate Professor from 1984-1988. In 1988, Dr. Nakamura moved to the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo. When Dr. Nakamura returned to the KEK Laboratory in 1995, Dr. Nakamura became Head of the Experimental Planning & Program Coordination Division. Dr. Nakamura now heads the Physics Division 3, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies (IPNS), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK).
Dr. Nakamura's area of research is the High Energy Physics Experiment. During the period of 1984-1988, Dr. Nakamura worked in the TOPAZ Collaboration in the TRISTAN 30 GeV Electron-Positron Collider Experiment. Since April 1987, Dr. Nakamura has been a member of the Kamiokande Collaboration and of the Super-Kamiokande Collaboration. In the Kamiokande Collaboration, the group measured the Boron-8 solar neutrino flux and found it to be about half of its expectation. The group also measured atmospheric neutrinos and found an anomaly that suggests oscillations of muon neutrinos. In the Kamiokande Collaboration, Dr. Nakamura has also searched for proton decay and established the lower limits of its lifetime. In the Super-Kamiokande Collaboration, Dr. Nakamura engaged in the construction of the world's largest Cherenkov detector ever built, and measured the atmospheric neutrinos that showed an evidence for the oscillation of muon neutrinos. He returned KEK to promote the construction of a neutrino beam line for a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment between KEK and Super-Kamiokande, known as the K2K experiment.
In 1998, the Super-Kamiokande Group was awarded the Asahi Prize for the discovery of neutrino mass.