Dr. Mitsunori Ogihara – professor in the UM College of Arts & Sciences Department of Computer Science, director of data mining for the Center for Computational Science, and associate dean for digital library innovation – made a triumphant return to his alma mater, as one of seven chosen for the Tokyo Institute of Technology Lecture Series, last month.
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The Tokyo Institute of Technology is Japan’s leading national university for science and technology.
Ogihara participated in Tokyo Tech’s Lecture Series for Freshmen by Distinguished Professors, an initiative that aims to motivate first-year students to pursue careers in research.
Each of Tokyo Tech’s seven divisions invited a prominent alumnus now working overseas to participate. Ogihara earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in information sciences – corresponding to the American field of computer science – from Tokyo Tech. He has been in the United States since 1994, when he became an assistant professor at the University of Rochester. He taught there until 2007, when he came to UM.
Ogihara’s lecture focused on data mining, an interdisciplinary subset of computer science focused on the process of discovering patterns in large data sets.
“My main point was that data mining goes beyond the traditional realm of computation and offers opportunities to collaborate with scholars in other disciplines,” he said. He added that post-lecture evaluations indicated that the talk was very well received by students.
Tokyo Tech’s leadership is currently undertaking a large-scale effort to standardize the curriculum for first-year students.
February 03, 2015
