With just a few months away from the long-awaited 𝟮𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗣𝗖𝗖𝗵𝗘 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀, we become even closer to delving into diverse fields of science and technology with an intent to foster greater unity among chemical engineers, chemists, and professionals of related fields across the Asia Pacific region. Helping make this possible is the distinguished . Prof. 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗼 𝗦𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗶 of Japan, who is our 𝟑𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 that will share insights and expertise to further propel the community towards progress and development.

At the present, Prof. Mikio Sakai works as a Full-time Professor at the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Management of The University of Tokyo — a top public university in Tokyo, Japan that ranked 23rd in the QS World University Rankings 2023. He has a long history with the prestigious university, as it is the institution where he earned his degree in Doctor of Philosophy last 2006, became Assistant Professor in 2007, Associate Professor in 2008, and finally a Full-time Professor just this year. He is also affiliated with the Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, as he has been a Visiting Reader since 2016 and a Visiting Professor since 2019 of the former and latter, respectively.

Sakai-sensei extensively studies modeling and simulation for granular and multi-phase flows, parallel computation techniques for the discrete element method, and data science for powder systems. As such, he is a world-leading professor in computational granular dynamics, sharing his profound knowledge at lectures at conferences. He also holds important posts in the powder technology community, which includes him being the Director of the Society of Powder Technology of Japan and also the Head of the Modeling & Simulation Division and Chairperson of the AI Technical Committee in the Association of Powder Process Industry and Engineering, JAPAN. Aside from these, he is an editor of Chemical Engineering Science and Granular Matter.

With all his contributions, Sakai-sensei became a recipient of multiple scientific awards. To name a few, he was presented with the SCEJ Award for Outstanding Research Achievement by The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan, the IP Award by the Information Center of Particle Technology, the Best Paper Award by the Society of Powder Technology of Japan, and the JACM Fellows Award by the Japan Association for Computational Mechanics.