Naoto OHTAKE

Naoto Ohtake is president and chief executive officer at Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo).

Before his current position, Ohtake was director-general of the Institute of Innovative Research (IIR) and director of the Organization for Fundamental Research at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) from 2022 to 2024. He was also an IIR professor from 2018 to 2024.

Ohtake earned his bachelor’s, master's, and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from Tokyo Tech in 1986, 1988, and 1992, respectively. From 1989 to 2000, he was with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Science at Tokyo Tech, first as an assistant professor, then as an associate professor. During this period, he was also a visiting associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1995 to 1996.

From 2000 to 2006, Ohtake was an associate professor at Tokyo Tech’s Department of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering. In 2006, he joined the Department of Materials, Physics, and Energy Engineering at Nagoya University as an associate professor. He returned to Tokyo Tech’s Department of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering in 2009, where he became a professor the following year. He also served as advisor to the Tokyo Tech president from 2012 to 2015.

Ohtake was Tokyo Tech’s vice president for research promotion from 2015 to 2017. During this period, he was also named as a professor at the School of Engineering. From 2017 to 2018, Ohtake served as Tokyo Tech’s vice president for research development. He was also associate director of the Laboratory for Design of Social Innovation Global Networks (DLab) from 2018 to 2024, and director of the Laboratory for Future Interdisciplinary Research of Science and Technology at IIR from 2020 to 2022.

Ohtake's main field of interest is surface engineering and science, including chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition of hard carbon films and their application to industrial uses.