(born June 17, 1947) is a Japanese computer scientist. Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo.Professor Emeritus Akinori Yonezawa receives the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology News, the University of Tokyo (November 4, 2020)Akinori Yonezawa, Director of the Software Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research Center, receives the Order of the Sacred Treasure, the Chiba Institute of Technology TOPICS (November 3, 2020) Received Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).Specifications and verification techniques for parallel programs based on message passing semantics, MIT Ph.D. Dissertation, December1977 Currently, a senior fellow at the Chiba Institute of Technology, Software Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research Center. Software Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research Center, the Chiba Institute of Technology Former member of the Science Council of Japan.The 21st term member list of the Science Council of Japan Specializes in object-oriented programming languages, distributed computing and information security.Akinori Yonezawa, My software research, Computer Software, Vol.21, No.5, 2004 From its beginning, he contributed to the promotion and development of object-oriented programming, which is the basis of programming languages most commonly used today (Python, Java, C++, etc.), and served as a program committee member and chairman of the main international conferences OOPSLA and ECOOP. At the same time, he is internationally known as a pioneer of the concepts and models of “concurrent/parallel objects".Akinori Yonezawa, Association for Computing Machinery(ACM) Fellows, 1999The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize Winners for 2008 In software systems constructed based on concurrent/parallel objects, information processing and computation proceed by concurrent/parallel message passing among a large number of objects.The first paper on concurrent object-oriented programming. It is based on asynchronous method invocations. Akinori Yonezawa, Jean-Pierre Briot, and Etsuya Shibayama. Object-oriented concurrent programming in ABCL/1. In Proceedings of OOPSLA’86. 258–268 Yonezawa's concurrent (parallel) objects are influenced by Actors, the concept of which was proposed by Carl Hewitt at MIT's AI Lab in the early 1970sCarl Hewitt, Peter Bishop, and Richard Steiger. A universal modular ACTOR formalism for artificial intelligence. In Proceedings of the 3rd international joint conference on Artificial intelligence (IJCAI'73). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA, 235–245, 1973 and later rigorously formulated by Gul Agha.Gul Agha. "Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems". Doctoral Dissertation. MIT Press. 1986. However, concurrent objects and actors are fundamentally different. An actor is an object that does not have a "state," whereas Yonezawa's concurrent (parallel) object can have a persistent state. For this reason, concurrent (parallel) objects are often used in implementing large parallel processing software systems. Large-scale software systems built and put into practical use based on concurrent (parallel) objects include an online virtual world system Second Life,Jim Purbrick, Mark Lentczner: Second life: the world's biggest programming environment. OOPSLA Companion 2007 social networking services such as FacebookHACK, the programming language used to describe the Facebook infrastructure with objects and asynchronous operations. HACK home page and X (Twitter),Much of the Twitter infrastructure is described in Scala with objects and concurrency. "effectivescala" page in twitter's GitHub and large-scale molecular dynamics simulation systems such as NAMD.University of Illinois NAMD home pageCharm++ programming model used in constructing NAMD
Biography He graduated from Azabu High School in 1966, and graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mathematical Engineering in 1970. He received Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Computer Science in 1977. His dissertation is entitled "Specification and verification techniques for parallel programs based on message passing semantics".Specifications and Verification Techniques for Parallel Programs Based on Message Passing Semantics, MIT-LCS-TR-191, 1978
He engaged in research on parallel and distributed computing models at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. After returning to Japan, he studied and taught at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and became a professor at the University of Tokyo, Department of Information Science in 1988.Professor Yonezawa receives the Dahl-Nygaard Prize, the University of Tokyo press release (June 19, 2008) He held various positions of the University of Tokyo, including director of the Information Infrastructure Center. He was elected as a member of the Science Council of Japan in 2008. In 2011 he retired from the University of Tokyo and became a professor emeritus. He was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2009 Akinori Yonezawa receives the Medal with Purple Ribbon, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology Newsa, the University of Tokyo (November 3, 2009) and the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2020.Japanese Official Gazette Extra No. 230, November 4, 2020 After retiring from the University of Tokyo, he served as deputy director of the RIKEN Computational Science Institute until 2015, contributing to the operation of the supercomputer "K".K Computer Newsletter, January 2012 Then, he served as Director of the Software Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research Center, the Chiba Institute of Technology until 2022."Stair Lab" opened, cutting-edge center for artificial intelligence research, with Dr. Yonezawa as director, the Chiba Institute of Technology NEWS CIT (May 15, 2015) Currently, he is a senior fellow at the research center.
In 2012, an international symposium commemorating Yonezawa's 65th birthday was held in Kobe, and a collection of papers (Festschrift) authored by the symposium participants was published by German publisher Springer-Verlag in 2014.Concurrent Objects and Beyond: Papers dedicated to Akinori Yonezawa on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, (Eds. Gul Agha, Atsushi Igarashi, Naoki Kobayashi, Hidehiko Masuhara, Satoshi Matsuoka, Etsuya Shibayama, Kenjiro Taura) Springer LNCS 8665, 2014
An article overviewing Yonezawa's computer software research up to around 2003 was published in a journal of the Japan Society for Software Science and Technology.
Additionally in April 2026 at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Yonezawa gave a talk (mainly for young researchers) entitled "From Curiosity About Language to Technology That Moves the World", which reflected on his own past researchNational Institute of Informatics Event Report "Special Lecture by Professor Akinori Yonezawa".
Biographical chronology 1966 Graduated from Azabu Private High School 1970 Graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mathematical Engineering 1972 Completed master's course at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Engineering, Mathematical Engineering 1974 Research Assistant, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Science 1978 Completed doctoral course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Science 1978 Assistant, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Faculty of Science 1983 Associate Professor, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Faculty of Science 1988 Professor, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Faculty of Science 1988 Professor, the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Science 1995 Chairman, the Japan Society for Software Science and Technology Past officers of Japan Society for Software Science and Technology 2003 Professor, the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies (transfer) 2006 Director, the University of Tokyo, Information Infrastructure Center 2006 Deputy Director, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Information Security Research Center 2008 Member, the Science Council of Japan 2011 Professor Emeritus, the University of Tokyo 2011 Deputy Director, RIKEN Institute for Computational Science 2015 Director, the Chiba Institute of Technology, Software Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research Center 2022 Senior Fellow, the Chiba Institute of Technology
Other public positions He served as a member of the project evaluation and promotion committee for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry's Real World Computing (RWC), which began as a 10-year project in 1988.The biography of the 2008 Distinguished Service Award winners from Japan Society for Software Science and Technology From April 2001 to March 2004, he was a member of the Cabinet Office Regulatory Reform CouncilMembers, Council for Regulatory Reform, Cabinet Office and the chief of the Education and Research Working Group.Council for Regulatory Reform 10th Plenary Meeting Handout 1 in 2002. Study status in the field of Education/Research He concurrently served as Auditor of the National Institute of Information and Systems,Business and Audit Report 2004, Research Organization of Information and Systems Director of Database Center for Life Science,History of the Database Center for Life Science and deputy director of the Information Security Research Center in the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology(AIST).Research Center for Information Security, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Furthermore, from April 2005 to March 2006, he was the chairman of the Sugimori Junior High School Regional School Management Council in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.Author introduction of the book "Children finding their smiles. - Educational reform theory for the future." A former member of Engine 01 Cultural Strategy Council.Report of the 39th visiting lecture, Engine 01 Cultural Strategy CouncilCooperation with external events, Engine 01 Cultural Strategy Council
International & domestic academic roles and awards He served as the chairperson and committee member of numerous international and domestic academic conferences and societies related to programming languages, object-oriented computing, and parallel & distributed computing, and served on the editorial board of academic journals and journals of American academic societies.Curriculum Vitae for Akinori YONEZAWA He was awarded the title of ACM Fellow from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Fellow of the Information Processing Society of JapanFellow, Information Processing Society of Japan,2010 and Fellow of the Japan Society for Software Science and Technology.Fellows, Japan Society for Software Science and Technology, 2004 He served as chairman of the Japan Society for Software Science and Technology and scientific advisor to the German National Institute for Information Science and Technology (GMD). Furthermore, since 2006, he has served as a member of the TCAAB (Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board) at Microsoft headquarters (Redmond, Washington).Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board Enters Its Fifth Year, MIcrosoft News, February 26, 2008