Professor Sukekatsu Ushioda, a native of Japan, was born in 1941. He was educated in Japan through high school, and then moved to the United States in 1960. He graduated from Dartmouth College (1964) and obtained his M.S. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. His field of interest is solid-state and surface physics. After his Ph.D. he taught at the University of California, Irvine (1969-1985) and at Tohoku University (1985-2004). He served as President of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2004-2008). He was a Fellow of the National Institute for Materials Science (2008-2009), before assuming the present position of President (2009~). He is also serving as President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (2008-2011).