Naoki Kimura, from The University of Tokyo, is Awarded the 2020 Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship Award

This year, the Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship Award attracted 106 distinguished Ph.D. candidates from 36 leading research universities or institutions around the Asia Pacific Region to apply. As a result, only 12 extremely outstanding students have been awarded fellowships. This is the twenty-first year that Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) discover and support the outstanding PhD students majoring in Computer Science in the Asia-Pacific Region by giving this award.

Among them, Naoki Kimura from The University of Tokyo, supervised by Junichi Rekimoto, gets one of the valuable places. Focusing on the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Wearable Computing and Pattern Recognition, Naoki Kimura has done deep and focused research on silent HCI that spans hardware, algorithm, and system implementation. His ideas of using ultrasound imaging for silent speech interface and using dental retainer-style sensor for silent spelling interface are both novel and inspiring. He received the Honorable Mention Award in both CHI’18 and CHI’19 (5%). He is the winner of MSRA D-CORE2020 as well.

Winning the Fellowship means a lot to Naoki Kimura. It is encouraging and gives him further motivation for his research direction. Moreover, it will strongly accelerate his research as it is a well-recognized award. “Research is often a lonely journey, but I’m feeling that I got fellows to walk together now.” Naoki said. He also looks forward to the internship at MSRA which is an opportunity the Fellowship further offers.

Naoki Kimura’s research path has a special motivator: smartphone. When he was a high school student, most of his friends thought that a computer was a geeky and difficult thing, but they were addicted to the smartphones without even being aware that they were using that «computer.» This interesting discovery leads Naoki to his research now.

Currently, Naoki is developing an interface that allows every human being to use a computer without any special ability or training, like internal organs controlled by autonomic nerves. “We still have many barriers to use computers. To use current computer systems, we need not only training, but also, at least vision and hands, or hearing and voice.” Naoki said. “For the goal, I have been working on Silent Speech Interfaces.”

In Prof. Junichi Rekimoto’s eyes, one of Naoki’s outstanding qualities is his ability to finding the most efficient path toward his research goal. At the undergraduate level, Naoki majored in urban engineering, and he did not have enough background in computer science. However, he very quickly acquired necessary skills and submitted a full paper just five months after admission to our CS program.

While cultivating Naoki into an excellent researcher, Prof. Junichi Rekimoto regards one thing important: try to advise PhD students to have a simple, clear, and powerful research claim. “Of course, such a claim can be wrong, can change during the research progress, but I expect they are always aware of what they are trying to solve.” Prof. Junichi Rekimoto said, “In this regard, his research question is always very clear, and I think that contributes to his research’s success.”

Prof. Junichi Rekimoto attended Academic Day 2019 as a panelist and discussed talent cultivating

During the past twenty years, 429 outstanding students was awarded the Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship. Many of them have become influential researchers in their area. Predictably, this year’s winners will be the future backbone in the Japanese computer science area. Let us look forward to their future achievements!