September 7, 2023
Yoshiki Zaitsu, a fourth-year student in the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies and a member of Professor Junichi Ushiyama's laboratory, has received the Young Investigator Award at the 17th Motor Control Meeting.
The Motor Control Meeting is a conference where participants from various fields such as physiology, biology, engineering, medical sciences, rehabilitation, and sports science, who research motor control mechanisms across Japan, come together to report and discuss their research findings. It is held once a year with the keywords "nurturing young researchers" and "interdisciplinarity."
The Young Investigator Award was established to encourage the research of outstanding young researchers in motor control and to further invigorate the Motor Control Meeting. It is selected from general presentations given by first authors who are researchers within five years of obtaining their doctoral degree (including those who have not yet obtained one). It is a remarkable achievement for a fourth-year undergraduate student to win this award, especially amidst fierce competition from numerous postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students.
Presentation Title
"How is Bimanual Motor Learning Modulated by the Movement Order and Timing of the Left and Right Limbs?"
Comment from Yoshiki Zaitsu
I am filled with surprise and joy to receive such a wonderful award for my very first conference presentation.
Ever since I attended the Motor Control Meeting last year (2022) as an observer, I have admired the senior members of my lab who confidently presented their research. My dream of one day presenting at a conference among leading researchers and having my own research evaluated came true in just one year. Through the discussions at the conference, I realized that my research was being communicated to many people, which became a huge source of motivation for me.
Since joining Professor Junichi Ushiyama's laboratory in my second year, Professor Ushiyama has taught me a great deal. I especially feel that my ability to deliver clear presentations has significantly improved thanks to his guidance. I am also very grateful to my collaborator Hirotaka Sugino (3rd-year, Ph.D. program, Graduate School of Media and Governance; member of Ushiyama Lab), who meticulously taught me how to conduct research from the ground up; my collaborator Professor Daichi Nozaki (Professor, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo), who authored preceding studies and also proposed the experimental idea for this research; and my lab members, with whom I can strive and learn as colleagues dedicated to our research. I believe that thanks to the support of so many people, I was able to achieve results that I could never have accomplished on my own.
I will continue to steadily advance my research, aiming to make an impact on many people by elucidating the mechanisms of motor learning.
Source: General Affairs Section, Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) Office