Biography

Kaoru Ota was born in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan. She received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Aizu, Japan, in 2006 and 2012, respectively, and her M.S. degree from Oklahoma State University, USA, in 2008. She is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Japan, and a Professor at the Center for Computer Science (CCS), Muroran Institute of Technology, Japan, where she served as the founding director. She was also a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Excellent Young Researcher. From March 2010 to March 2011, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Also, she was a Japan Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS) research fellow at Tohoku University, Japan from April 2012 to April 2013. Kaoru is the recipient of IEEE TCSC Early Career Award 2017, The 13th IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Young Researcher Award 2018, 2020 N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications, 2020 KDDI Foundation Encouragement Award, and 2021 IEEE Sapporo Young Professionals Best Researcher Award, The Young Scientists’ Award from MEXT in 2023. She is Clarivate Analytics 2019, 2021, 2022 Highly Cited Researcher (Web of Science) and is selected as JST-PRESTO researcher in 2021, Fellow of EAJ in 2022, and Fellow of AAIA in 2025.

Education

• Ph.D. - The University of Aizu, Japan
• M.S. - Oklahoma State University, USA
• B.S. - The University of Aizu, Japan

Professional Positions

Current Positions

• Distinguished Professor (教授), Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University
• Professor (教授), Department of Sciences and Informatics, Muroran Institute of Technology