Tomoko Nakanishi

Tomoko M. Nakanishi (中西友子) is a Japanese chemical scientist leading in the development and application of imaging techniques using radiation and radionuclides for research on water and element physiology in plants. Her research strategy excels by optimizing a variety of complementary radiochemical/nuclear analytical techniques together with innovative experimental set-ups to get insight in a part of the plant physiology.

Early life and education Nakanishi was born in 1950 in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan as third child. Her father was a medical doctor in practice. She grew up in Tokyo and graduated high school in 1969 from highschool attached to the Tokyo University of Education when the student movement was at the highest in Japan.

Then she found her job at Zeon Co., 8 years before the Equal Employment Opportunity Law came into force in Japan. There she had to change her research field to plant physiology to initiate biology group.

In the case of water, she measured the small amount of water actually moving inside the plant. 2016, 2019 and 2023 by Springer. The online version has been accessed more than 213,000, Then she got an offer as a president of Hoshi University in 2019. Retired from Hoshi University she was appointed as a professor emeritus of Hoshi University in 2022. She was offered an Auditor of Fukushima Institute for Research, Education and Innovation in 2022.

Nakanishi was a council member of Science Council of Japan, a commissioner of Japan Atomic Energy Commission, a vice president of Engineering Academy of Japan, a president of The Japan Soc. of Nuclear and Radiochemical Sciences and a commissioner of Japanese National Commission for UNESCO. She is now a vice president of Agricultural Academy of Japan, an Administrative Council of Kyoto University, Board of Trustees Member of Chubu University, etc.

Awards and honors Nakanishi is a conspicuous and influential role model for Japanese women, having been awarded the Saruhashi Prize in 2000 as the nation's outstanding woman in science. She received Contribution Award from Atomic Energy Society of Japan in 2001, and Society Award of Nuclear and Radiochemical Sciences in Japan in 2010.

Her contributions to science and to society have been recognized internationally, notably by Hevesy Medal Award, selecting one premiere radiochemist every year, named after a Nobel Prize Laurie, Dr. G. Hevesy, in 2016. as well as Ordre des Palmes académiques in 2022 from French government. She was also awarded the Göteborg Lise Meitner Award in 2025 as the first Japanese scientist.

She was elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering in 2015 and the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg in 2017, and an Honorary Doctor of Chalmers University of Technology in 2019.