[No. 136] Sho Shimizu

I have been given the opportunity to write for this Keio University alumni relay column. I would like to look back on the nine years leading up to the completion of my Doctoral Programs. I hope this will be of some help to you.

I first became interested in computers when my father bought a laptop PC when I was in elementary school. Then, during my junior and senior high school years, with the release of Windows 95 and the spread of the internet, I decided I wanted to study information and communications in college, so I chose the Department of Information and Computer Science.

After visiting various labs and looking at their web pages to decide which one to join, I decided I wanted to go to a communications and networking lab. I joined the laboratory of Professor Naoaki Yamanaka, who had just been appointed as a professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science from NTT when I was in my fourth year. A key factor in my choice was the thought that under Professor Yamanaka, who had long experience working in the corporate world, I might be able to have interesting experiences that I couldn't get in other labs.

Being involved in the launch of a new laboratory as a member of its first class was a rare experience. Along with the senior students who had transferred from the Sasase Lab and three of my classmates, I enjoyed the process of building the lab from scratch. At first, we didn't even have proper chairs and desks, so whenever a senior student found desks and chairs that other labs were throwing away on campus, we were all called to collect them. During the major cleaning season, we were especially on the lookout for high-quality desks and chairs being discarded on campus (laughs).

In addition, the lab didn't even have an internet connection at first, so we had to select, purchase, and set up the routers, servers, and the racks to house them all by ourselves. While setting up a web server is one thing, we rarely get the chance to configure DNS and mail servers. It was a lot of work to get the settings right and make everything work properly, but I half-enjoyed it, feeling like it was a kind of experiment.

For my graduation thesis, I conducted research on the theme of the wavelength assignment problem in optical wavelength division multiplexing networks. I struggled a lot to come up with a proposed method, but after much trial and error, I was able to put together a good paper. I remember feeling relieved when I successfully finished my thesis presentation. After that, I proceeded to the master's program.

While talking with Professor Yamanaka, I began to think that pursuing a doctoral degree would be a good experience and that there weren't many disadvantages in terms of employment, so I decided to enter the Doctoral Programs. One of my major experiences in the Doctoral Programs was participating in the Global COE (G-COE) program as a Research Assistant (RA). Many doctoral students from various departments in the Faculty of Science and Technology, besides the Department of Information and Computer Science, also participated in this program as RAs. It was a valuable experience to learn about fields outside my own specialty and to make new connections. The G-COE was a program aimed at producing globally active human resources, and the experience of conducting classes and discussions in English and arranging workshops with overseas universities as students has been useful in my current job.

Also, through the G-COE's international internship program, I studied abroad at Ghent University in Belgium for a total of three months (two months plus one month). At Ghent University, I worked in Professor Piet Demeester's group, conducting an international interconnection experiment by running implementations developed at the Yamanaka Lab and Ghent University on their advanced network experimental facilities. The paper summarizing these research results eventually won an award from the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), which gave me a great deal of confidence.

After completing my Doctoral Programs in 2010, I joined Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. Fortunately, my research theme after joining the company was not significantly different from my theme in graduate school, and I continue to conduct research and development related to the same communication networks. Since 2012, I have been researching and developing a new network technology called SDN (Software Defined Networking). The research theme I started that year led to my assignment to Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Fujitsu Laboratories, for a three-year period starting in October 2014. Currently, I am participating full-time in an external open-source software project to develop an SDN controller. In many Japanese companies, there is still a lack of understanding of open source, so I am gaining valuable experience by being able to participate full-time in open-source development. The project is developed by a multinational team, but thanks to my short-term study abroad in Belgium during my doctoral course, I am enjoying my work without any particular confusion or hardship in living and working abroad.

Having gone on to the Doctoral Programs, I was at Keio University for nine years, a period longer than elementary school. In particular, the six years I spent in the Yamanaka Lab, where I experienced the process of the lab growing from its very beginning, have had a significant impact on my current way of thinking and my attitude toward work. I hope to continue to make use of this experience in my future work.