The Tenth Nagamori Awards Ceremony was Held Successfully
Nagamori Foundation held the Tenth Nagamori Awards Ceremony on Sunday, September 8, 2024 to honor the winners of the awards and the recipients of the research grant for 2024.
The ceremony was held at Hotel Okura Kyoto as the venue. Approximately 200 people, including the award winners, research grant recipients, and those related to Nagamori Foundation attended the ceremony.
Additionally, the winners of the 6th to 8th Nagamori Awards and the research grant recipients that attended the online ceremony in 2020-2022 participated in person. The ceremony was attended by many participants from academia.
After the 6 Nagamori Awards winners presented their research topic, Nagamori Foundation’s Review Committee chose Dr. Peter Sergeant (Full Professor, Ghent University) as the Grand Nagamori Award winner.
The commendation ceremony began with Prof. Hori, the Review Committee’s Chair, explaining how the winners were selected, followed by the announcement of the Tenth Grand Nagamori Award winner. Each winner received a commendation certificate and a prize trophy from Mr. Nagamori, President of Nagamori Foundation, and then representing the award winners, Professor Sergeant delivered a speech to express the
pleasure of receiving the Award.
The next part of the ceremony was to present research grants (“Research Grant 2024”) to the 24 researchers, mostly associate or assistant professors (9 new and 15 renewal recipients). Following that, Dr. Yoshitsugu Otomo, Assistant Professor of Nagasaki University, gave a speech to appreciate the grant on behalf of all the grant recipients.
At this ceremony, the Grand Nagamori Award winners of the 6th, 7th and 8th Awards (Prof. Chris Gerada/ the University of Nottingham, Prof. Tom Oomen/ Eindhoven University of Technology and Delft University of Technology, Prof. Gianmario Pellegrino/ Politecnico di Torino) each gave a lecture titled “Receiving the Grand Nagamori Awards”. Mr. FUJIWARA Akio, Vice Minister of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – Japan, gave a congratulatory address in person, representing the guests. Moreover, at the celebratory party, Mr. Takatoshi Nishiwaki, Governor of Kyoto Prefecture gave a congratulatory address, and Mr. Koji Matsui, Mayor of Kyoto City gave a toast. The ceremony ended in great success.
The Grand Nagamori Award (2024)
- Peter Sergeant
- ［Full Professor, Department of Electromechanical, Systems and Metal Engineering, Ghent University/ Core Lab MIRO, FlandersMake@UGent］
- Design of sustainable axial and radial flux synchronous electric machines
Award Winners (2024)
- Makoto Hagiwara
- ［Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology］
- Application of multilevel power conversion technologies to industrial drives and DC-DC converters for moving vehicles
- Christopher H. T. Lee
- ［Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University］
- For contributions to advancements in vernier motor drives and their industrial applications
- Kenji Nakamura
- ［Professor, Department of Management Science and Technology, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University］
- Research and development on high-performance contactless magnetic gears and magnetic-geared machines
- Allison Okamura
- ［Richard W. Weiland Professor in the School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering and, by courtesy, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University］
- Soft growing robot actuation for navigation and exploration in constrained environments
- Sara Roggia
- ［Head of magniDrive Project, Power Electronics Department, magniX］
- Taking to the skies electric motors and propulsion units for electric aviation
The Grand Nagamori Award winner's comment
Dr. Peter Sergeant
(Full Professor, Department of Electromechanical, Systems and Metal Engineering, Ghent University/ Core Lab MIRO, FlandersMake@UGent)
It is a great honour to be selected for the 10th Grand Nagamori Awards. I strongly support the goal of these awards to advance and innovate motor technology, to support researchers and development engineers, and to conserve the global environment.
My own fascination for electric machines and drives started during my engineering studies, about 25 years ago. In that time, the society was not really interested in the global environment, and electric drives were not yet seen as an enabler to decarbonize our economy. Today, energy efficient and sustainable electric machines and drives have become a very important technology that helps to make our world environmentally friendly, both for industry and electric mobility.
I am grateful that my passion for electric machines can contribute to a more sustainable world. Increasing energy efficiency, power density and sustainability are the main goals of my research. Efficiency and power density are realized amongst others by 3D printing of windings and ferromagnetic parts, and via better cooling techniques. Sustainability is realised by investigating new materials and production techniques for electric machines, and by increasing their lifetime via research about bearing currents and partial discharge in windings. This research is in collaboration with industry, in order to bring electric machines with minimal environmental footprint to the market.
Education and training of bachelor students, master students and PhD students is also very important for me. These students will continue research and improvement of electric machines and drives in the future. The initiative of Mr. Nagamori to create the Nagamori awards is encouraging and inspiring for these students and for all researchers in the field of electrical machines and drives.
Finally, I would like to thank my PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and other colleagues that helped me realising the research results that have led to this Grand Nagamori Award.
