 Good morning everybody and welcome to the welcome ceremony for 2020. I know it's 2021 now, but this is in recognition of those students and faculty who have joined us over the last year and Welcome to you all for many of you. It's the first time I have seen you We've done a lot of stuff online, but it's great to see you all here and welcome also to those people in the audience online who are watching To start the proceedings off, I would like to call on the president Peter Gruess to give some opening remarks Peter Good morning, and thank you all for joining me here today A heartfelt welcome to the class of 2020 our new faculty members Our OIST community and our guests You are joining us here at an unprecedented time The COVID-19 pandemic took us all by surprise and affected directly or indirectly the lives of everyone worldwide The crucial role of science, however, has never been so clear New vaccines have been developed at record speed If you consider the regular vaccine take about five to ten years and the vaccines that are now being used in many countries Have been developed in less than a year So Why did that happen? because the scientists around the world joined We're joined into this effort and we're producing what is available now At many places here at OIST. We are playing our part Many of our scientists joined the global research endeavor as I outlined in more detail in my year-end letter to you Right here on campus. We set up an effective PCR testing lab Due to the swift COVID-19 prevention efforts We managed to keep our campus virus free for now seven months It is up to us all to continue to act Responsibly and follow our rules in order to keep our community safe So let me reassure you That you might have made the right choice OIST and Okinawa are good places to be for scientific excellence and in times of global pandemic More than 400 years ago, we learned from Francis Bacon that science needs to make the world a better place to live in Never before has that been more pertinent and this goes far beyond the COVID-19 crisis As our world continues to change at a rapid pace, we must continue to tackle many more challenges climate change providing sustainable energy food and clean water to a growing population and Protecting our health as well as the earth ecosystem Education and research will be vital to this endeavor It is you Your generation has a crucial role to play The future of our planet Will rely on your creativity intelligence integrity and Responsibility Today we are on the brink of the fourth industrial revolution Many of the technological advances Breakthrough innovations and new jobs that we will require to carry us into the future do not even exist yet You are front-runners You have the opportunity to explore new scientific territories and define the future of mankind the fact that you have chosen to come to OIST a pioneering graduate university pushing the frontiers of scientific knowledge shows that you are up for the challenge as OIST founding president Sydney Brenner astutely noted young people go where there is a challenge and They are the ones you really want to have the ones that go where you can do something you and get excited Today we welcome you OIST ninth class You are the chosen few for more than a thousand applicants In fact in December our graduate school won the student recruitment campaign of the year in the Times Higher Education Award Asia 2020 I Would like to take this moment to thank our talented graduate school team For their dedication and hard work that tripled the number of PhD Applications and I think they deserve a big hand The fact that we have chosen you shows that you have already impressed us with your achievements your intelligence and your Perseverance, we are proud to have you and we expect great things of you You will need to challenge yourselves Sometimes it will be difficult There will be late late night studying and long weekend ends in the lab But take a look around you The people sitting next to you will soon become Some of your closest friends you will build a strong network of colleagues from a wide range of disciplines You will become citizens of the world and most of all you will realize your potential as scientists OIST is a truly unique place to study Our beautiful compass overlooks subtropical rainforest and coral reefs The views of nature are inspiring every day But there's much more of course OIST is the most international research University. I have experienced and is already producing world-class research This has been possible Because OIST recruits top talents at all levels from all over the world Moreover Our generous high-trust funding system from the Japanese government allows individuals to perform highly creative and Innovative research I Encourage you to make the most of the opportunities On offer to you here at OIST We want you to be curious creative courageous critical and to consult others Particularly outside your field We regularly welcome distinguished visitors to special workshops and events and Every month we hold a presidential lecture featuring a world-renowned scientist Considering the ongoing worldwide vaccination program. I very much hope That we can resume this program in the second half of this year and I look forward seeing you all there. I Also urge you to be involved in our community We have many Long-standing outreach events as well as many student-led initiatives benefiting our local community We all need to look beyond OIST and make the local Japanese and global communities aware of what OIST is all about It is important to remember that we have Responsibilities beyond your research Make sure You become part of it After all we are funded by the Japanese taxpayer as we welcome the newest members of our OIST family It is a good opportunity to reflect on recent accomplishments and look into the future 2020 was a year in which OIST flourished in the face of a university and we have continued to grow in April Laboratory number four was completed and 20 new units moved in with space for four more Construction of lab five is already underway We have welcomed 15 new professors selected for more than 1500 talented applicants Most of them are here today and will introduce themselves to you Over the next few years, we will steadily increase the number of students faculty and research staff So you are joining us at an exciting time This year we will hold our 10-year anniversary in November marking the start of the next decade of our development These next these next years will be filled with change Change for yourself and for the university as we continue to work together towards the common goal of advancing science through excellence in research We will help to strengthen the educational system of Japan and Contribute to the sustainable development of Okinawa OIST will provide you with top research education and innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit All of this gives you a sound basis for life in Sciences as well as a rewarding career Now it's up to you OIST ninth class to embrace the opportunities That OIST offers and rise to the challenges that lie ahead Our future depends on your success and dedication Or as the American politician William Jennings Bryan phrased it much better Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice It is not a thing to be waited for it is a thing to be achieved Go ahead and achieve something. Thank you very much Thank you very much Peter for those inspiring words It gives me now great pleasure to introduce Or help introduce to the university community our 15 new faculty who have joined us over the past year Unfortunately, three of them are not able to be with us today. So let me start with them and the first of them is Professor Daniel Spector Daniel Spector is from the USA. He's a pure mathematician His unit will be called the non-linear analysis unit. Well, he's already here in teaching Previously he was at National Chow Dong University in Taiwan and he is doing research on Let me read this Integral operators acting on constrained vector-valued integrable functions so Please continue the analysis on the slide above The second of the new faculty who will be joining us This year is Professor Vincent Laude He is As my pronunciation might hint at from France and he was previously at Sorbonne University He is interested in hormonal development systems in fish But is looking at them as a way of looking at the processes of development and evolution in particularly marine organisms and the third of our Faculty who cannot be with us today is Professor Emile Toubaire Emile Toubaire will be working in the shocks solitons and turbulence unit and He studies non-linear wave phenomena such as turbulence shockwaves and solitons as you might guess from the name of the unit he was previously at Imperial College in London and A warm welcome to all those three Now I would like to hand the microphone to the first of our faculty who are in attendance and they can explain their Research and a little bit about themselves Good morning, everyone. My name is Philip Hasnick and I'm leading the evolution cell biology and symbiosis unit I'm originally from the Czech Republic from Prague, but I've worked during my career in the UK US and Previously in Canada, so I moved here in from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and In my unit we study symbiosis so very close interactions between two or more unrelated organisms and We work at the interface of multiple disciplines evolutionary biology cell biology biochemistry microbiology marine sciences you name it and We're particularly interested in big questions such as the origin of life the origin of the eukaryotic cells And that's briefly about my unit. Thank you and Welcome Hello, everyone. My name is Yota Kabe. I'm from the Nara, Japan So my research background with the chemistry especially the material chemistry and some in one chemistry So I did the postdoc in the US, Germany and coming and also the Kyushu University then I'm from I'm now here so currently my research group focus on the Extend dynamics of the organic molecules and their application on the growing the dark materials and so many the organic semiconductor devices Thank you for you. Hi Hi Sai, Chu, Ukonabira Could you understand what I mean? These are Okinawa's language, which recently I remembered It means good morning and how are you? So again Hi Sai, Chu, Ukonabira My name is Tomomi Kiyomitsu. I am a cell biologist, but not Okinawa language specialist My unit study the mechanism of cell division because cell division is a very dynamic, beautiful and fundamental to all living organisms. I think there are so many unsolved key questions in this field We are currently using multiple advanced cell biological technologies such as Genome editing, live cell imaging, rapid protein knockdown and light-inducible protein manipulation So if you join my unit, I think you can visualize deplete and manipulate over your target protein in living cell to advance your own projects I am looking forward to working with highly motivated students. Thank you very much for your attention Good morning. I'm Akimitsu Narita Reading the organic and carbon nanomaterials unit I'm originally from Yokohama, Japan and study chemistry at the University of Tokyo where I worked on the spramorcular chemistry and physical organic chemistry of amphiphilic flowering C60 carbon molecule that still has symbol into spramorcular barrier vesicles in water And then I moved to a mines Germany in your Frankfurt for my PhD studies And I also worked as a group leader in total for 10 years. So I'm like one-third German now Last year September I finally came back to Japan joint OIST and my research unit focuses on the chemical synthesis of carbon nanomaterials we can Precisely control the structure chemical structure of carbon nuclear materials with atomic precision mean that mean that we can really properly the control their property and let them for example absorb and emit light in specific wavelength or let them conduct electricity or their spins or magnetism and This can be really controlled by chemical synthesis and control of their atomic structure With different and diverse potential applications for example for the light and making diversies in including visors and follow for for bioemzing and biosensing and also for transistors or spin electronics and even for quantum communication technology Where there spins at specific position of the carbon materials? I'm very much looking forward to collaborating for some of you who can utilize our materials in different research purposes I'm focusing on the synthesis and characterization and hope to work with you for the applications. Thank you very much Good morning. My name is Sam writer. I'm a neuroscientist originally from the US After doing my PhD at Brown University I moved to the Max Planck Institute for brain research in Frankfurt, Germany, and I've been here about a year now I came here to start the computational neuro ethology unit And we're studying colloid cephalopods. That's squid octopus and cuttlefish So we're interested in their fascinating and unique behaviors Both for its own sake, but also because they're so different than us and all other vertebrates that if we can find commonalities between how the brains and behaviors of cephalopods work and how Our brains and behaviors work. We can really hope to uncover general principles of how brains and behaviors work in general, I would like to I feel very privileged and Lucky to be able to spend my time thinking about these issues with bright and interesting colleagues I feel I want to take this opportunity to to thank all of you who help create and maintain this unique and wonderful environment at OIST And I wish you all the best at the beginning of this your PhD adventure. I Hope to be able to look work with at least some of you going forward. Thank you Good morning, everyone. I'm Mark Rosti from Italy I obtained my PhD in the UK in London and then worked in Sweden at KTH and here in Japan at the University of Tokyo That's January. I moved here in Tokinawa To join OIST. My unit name is Complex fluids and flows and we study fluid dynamics. In particular, we study both laminar and turbulent flows with numerical simulation I'm looking forward to meeting all of you and thank you very much Good morning, everyone. I am Naran Spear. I'm from the UK and I obtained my PhD in London and after that had positions in the UK mainland Japan and in Virginia in the US and Came to OIST last February My unit is in pure mathematics specifically a branch of algebra Abstract algebra concerned with essentially an algebraic formalism of symmetry and Representation theory somehow seeks to turn these abstract algebraic questions into more concrete linear algebra ones where there's more hope of Applying many tools of linear algebra. So that's the kind of research I'm into and I'm keen to help OIST Expand the group of mathematicians here both students and faculty. Thank you Hi, my name is Hiroki Takashi. I grew up in Japan I did my PhD in Tokyo and I moved to the UK and then I was working with the shop lines there and then my Experiment took eight and a half years and I stayed there eight and a half years and it took so long Either because the experiment was extremely difficult or I was pretty bad in the experiment I haven't figured out yet, but it doesn't matter. So based on that experience We are building another ion trap experiment here at OIST and then our objective is to Interface chopped irons with single photons and then link up small quantum Computers Hope free expounding them to a larger one. So I hope to Collaborate many of you and then if you're interested just email me or like talk to me or anything and Congratulations in Thank you very much I'm Kazutanaka leading memory research unit. I'm from Japan and did my PhD in US and came back afterwards We memory research unit study how brain store and use Information or past experiences to study that we use mice Because with cutting-edge technologies we have we can now examine what individual neurons in the brain says and Even control their activities to manipulate specific piece of memory This is the field where Many exciting stops are going on now and we need young and outstanding talents like you To deepen our understanding Welcome to OIST. I believe this is the one of the best places for scientists and we faculty Do our best for your future success. Thank you. I have everybody Good morning. So my name is Marco Tarancio from Italy I did my PhD in the UK at the cancer search UK and my postdoc at the Weismann Institute of Science in Israel I'm here. I'm at the head of the molecular neuroscience unit and as the name implies we are applying a wide variety of technologies and techniques from molecular biology to cell biology to the novel identification and in vivo transgenic animals to look at the mechanism underlying regeneration after injury and Molecular neurodegeneration So I would like to thank you Everyone for being here today, and I would like to wish you good luck in the proceeding of your PhD Good morning. My name is Jason Twomley and I'm a physicist for the last 15 years I've worked in Australia in the centers for quantum computer technology and engineered quantum systems and My unit is the quantum machines unit and in that we look at quantum machines Which essentially bring different types of quantum systems together to do something interesting so that could be photons spins atoms or moving quantum systems and Interesting things you could try to make from these are quantum memories for iron trap quantum computers or superconducting quantum computers or More interesting perhaps could be quantum sensors that sense for instance magnetic fields or gravitational fields And for gravitational fields We have to make this famous Schrodinger cat which is a superposition of an object in two places at once So many groups are attempting to make this Schrodinger cat and in our group We're trying to use magnetic levitation to levitate tiny objects at two places at once so yes cats are fun and We like to try and make quantum ones So if you want to learn more about quantum cats and to learn about quantum machines Please come and chat and good luck on your PhD and it'll be fascinating and fun. Thank you very much Good morning. My name is Xiao Dan Zhou and I'm a pure mathematician I'm originally from China and I've been in US for the past 10 years Getting my PhD and finish my point post art training. So our unit focused on the Starting mathematical analysis and partial differential equations on the so-called Magic measure spaces. So this is a very general setting and the various mathematical problems or Practical problems can be framed in this general settings so besides the mathematical importance it has been actively like like applied in many Like fast emerging fields like data science or machine learning or like most motivation of our research come from Mathematics side. We are also actively seeking for the application So if you are like generally interested in doing mathematical research or having Interest in analysis on PDEs, so please feel free to stop by my office located in lab 4 and have a chat Thank you Thank you very much to all the new faculty If you can please take your seats in the general audience area Give them a big hand everybody I'm sure you will all agree that this new batch of faculty is continuing the process of adding depth and range to our research and teaching opportunities and Thank you all for joining me in welcoming our new faculty At this point we are clearing the stage to make way for future part of the show, but at This juncture, I think it's now time for a welcome message from the Dean of the Graduate School Professor Ulf Skuglund Well No It's exciting to be here and welcoming you Because it's a very particularly unique situation We never had so many new comers For one year ever So this is a and a very very strong field where you are have been selected. I Would like to give you some words of wisdom To think about on this. I'll keep it short. Don't worry so Dear new students You have arrived at OIST and just been welcomed by our president and For many of you this trip to Okinawa has been a slalom journey of Strategic choices to avoid travel complications We appreciate deeply that you made it here, right? We have one poor student who had a problem with this So, thank you very much for trusting us to give you get you here safely And also you are now beginning a very exciting research and educational journey In the following years until graduation This journey will for sure define you as persons for a very long time You will grow as persons Learn about exciting science and make your own scientific discoveries and learn how to Do and present research So we at OIST graduate school are very proud To have you as our students and we hope to guide and help all of you well during these years We of course realize That coming to beautiful Okinawa has been an important decision point on your side and this time extra complicated due to the COVID-19 virus We at the grad school feel that The responsibility to make it possible for you to reach your best is Outmost of importance for us We also know that all of you are somewhat old At coming to OIST to start your scientific career So let that inspiring feeling spur you to do your best But please remember That you are all individuals Who need a social and private life also I Don't want to disappear in in bars and all that stuff, right? But please remember that you have a person and it's important to develop your own private life also So make sure that your network of contacts is Expanded to also include friends here at OIST and in Okinawa and the rest And research acquaintances in the world Your network build up here is very important for your future You so you should feel sure that the students who have arrived before you and are here already Are eager to be your friends Remember this it's very important our already graduated students or Our alumni are Beginning to spread out in Japan In and into the rest of the world and they can also be your contacts Science is a very integrated is very integrated in the social life and Our university is doing its best to make a very valuable and profound contribution So You are a very real part of the ambitions of OIST So we very warmly welcome you here to OIST and we all wish you good luck with your ambitions Thank you. Thank you very much Dean Skuglund At this juncture we will be able to introduce Individually all of the students to the OIST community and welcome them to OIST and to Okinawa So I will be Announcing them grouped on Order of the countries Which they represent and this year we have Like every year a couple of new countries that we have not had students from before So it's good to see this increase in contribution to the international nature of this PhD program So the first Country would be Canada and we have one student from Canada Mathieu Cuiya This year we have four students joining us from China Jia Hui Bao, Qi Zheng Zhang, Bo Lu Feng and Jia Hao Zhang Welcome From France we have three gentlemen Hugo Mose, Samuel Curie and Kaleel Ben Salah from Germany three students this year Lillian Magnus Nico Fischer and Josefine Rochenbach a student from Greece Konstantinos Tsarides from India. We have several students this year Pradeep Palanichami Aswati Raj Soma Mishra Sujeanath Sneeds Abarwal Not with us this morning Sarika Sassidaran Mohammed Jalaluddin Rajakte Kokate and Manisha Biswas who is unable to join us, but welcome anyway a student from Iran Zohreh Sharabi Farahani Quite a few students from Japan, which is always good to see Aisha Oshima Hiroki Sawada Hideyuki Yoshimura Hoshu Hiyane Morihiro Oita Oota, sorry Oota Minato Miyake Tatsuki Hamamoto Yuta Yamazaki Shannon Hayashi Shuhei Hara Nonno Hasagawa Yuma Kajihara and Kensei Kikuchi Pleased to introduce our first student ever from Lebanon, Sarazaki And in another first, our first ever student, in fact our first ever applicant from Madagascar Kojo Arisawa Rakoto Aritina A couple of students from Mexico Maria Bolanios and Javier Tejeda from Poland Isabella Porepska and Kamila Kozik A student from Romania Maria Lupu and from Russia Margarita Doronova Maria Pavel Tienko Alexandra Gavrilova Tatyana Gridneva Tatyana Jakovleva Alexander Sorvanov and Irina Koshok Again, she can't be with us but welcome anyway From Switzerland Rahel Ruckli Samira Gumea and Jan Zvalen from Taiwan Ishan Cheng Tinghua Chen Yuju Lin and Guanlin Cheng and from the United Kingdom Amy Gooch Patrick Clark and Luke Collier-Hore and the final country on record is the United States of America from where we have Alex Baranski Balachokolingam and Arjun Joshi So join me in welcoming all of these students from across the world to the OIST PhD program Please, thank you so much We appreciate you all have had a long journey to get here and we welcome you all to the OIST community We hope that you fit in and we know that we have a lot to offer you and you have a lot to offer us The next invited speaker is from the Student Council It's a tradition for the students who have been here to also welcome our new students This year we have the honour of the events chair from the Student Council, Ainash Garifulina Ainash Thank you Welcome guys It's a great pleasure to congratulate you on being here and joining our community Some of you have been here for a while and some of you have just recently finished your quarantine Congratulations on that too but all of you made it here and we're very excited to have you here and you're about to start your PhD journey and in usual times it is already something that brings a lot of questions and challenges but during a pandemic it brings even more challenges and uncertainties and in spite of how scary I might have made it sound this place is quite a unique place that has a special tendency to ease your way into it because it is quite difficult to not admire how beautiful this island is because of how welcoming and warm-hearted people are because of how beautiful the landscapes are the endless ocean so and obviously all of the OIS community who are very supportive and usually very friendly but being from as extent myself living near the sea has been I guess an unattainable dream of mine but now waking up to this beautiful view every morning it sort of makes me feel like probably anything is possible and after spending some time here you will also know that Okinawa nature is very diverse was its thick jungles in the north beautiful turquoise blue waters above the coral reefs the crystal clear waterfalls and rivers and in the times of a pandemic these scenic landscapes is actually something that provides an easy hideout for social distancing be it or self-isolation and this is not as readily available in other places a unique feature about OIST is how diverse people are here because it is really impressive to see from how many different countries, cultures and backgrounds people come to our university and it may be slightly overwhelming at first to just immerse into such a mixture of cultures to learn so many different ways of thinking to be introduced to so many different cuisines but after some time after you get used to it you feel that you probably can now connect to any person in the world and I believe that's something unique that OIST offers because after leaving here with OIST something like a culture shock shouldn't be a thing for you anymore and now that I've mentioned a few things that will probably affect you as a person there are also a few things that might affect you as a scientist and being an experimentalist myself I believe that one of the most important lessons that you can learn from OIST is how to be independent and how to manage the unlimited resources this place has to offer and it is very rare for PhD students to actually have so much saying in formulation of their thesis projects or in their day-to-day management of resources like the chemicals, software equipment or online databases but aside from all of these you now also have access to one of the most valuable resources world-renowned experts in their fields and although OIST is small and there are few people here this place being so small actually makes it easier for you to interact with some of the leading experts in their fields and the greatest minds in scientific field I'm sure that these interactions will lead to some of the most fruitful discussions, some of the most exciting exchange of ideas and I'm sure you will definitely get inspired but aside from the provided opportunities and knowledge and expertise of the senior researchers around you PhD also takes a lot of hard work but seeing that all of you are here I am pretty sure that you're aware how much hard work it takes so the main thing that I wanted to tell you today is that remember to celebrate your milestones because at times you might get tiresome or a little repetitive so make sure to schedule in sometime with your friends and family because these people are the ones who will be more than happy to celebrate with you your first successful experiment your poster presentation first publication and finally your thesis defense I know it might be hard to believe that now because it seems like it is so far away but you have everything it takes and we're here to support you so welcome and good luck thank you thank you again so now please allow me to move on to the next item which is the award giving ceremony the student council awards were initiated in 2019 and they serve to recognize members of our community who are excelling in their own right or going above and beyond their call of duty to support others along their journey at OIST this year we had a committee consisting of of representatives from the student council graduate school non-faculty researchers and faculty this team deliberated on all submitted nominations and today we will present the winners so the first category is award for staff excellence in student support we received multiple nominations for two candidates Chiyaki Chibana and Midori Morinaga we would like to appreciate you both for your hard work and the recommender actually had to say about the winner she is empathetic and also pragmatic and solution oriented she is an absolutely crucial support person at OIST who helps solves and guides through difficult and serious situations OIST as an institution is very lucky to have someone like her and the winner is Chiyaki Chibana so the second category is in student excellence in community service we received numerous nominations for students who are active beyond their academic programs to make life easier for others at OIST and its neighborhood the nominees were Christopher Campbell Shivani Satish and Milena Mineses Cavallio for the winner a recommender had this to say initiated the OIST power club in June and is leading more than 10 active members who help with conducting charity drives on campus she has already organized several projects and actively contributed to the local community by providing aid to those in need in Okinawa for example she organized two clothes drives in June and October and donated over 300 kilograms of clothes to two NPO's Help Okie and Okie Hands Okie Heart which raised funds by selling the clothes for high school students from local children homes who rely on part time jobs a great leader and a team member always willing to help with this Shivani Satish the third category is Researcher Excellence in Student Support this category was introduced last year to recognize the support that technicians postdocs and staff scientists provide students at OIST there were two nominees for this category namely Crystal Lee Clythro and Fabienne Benro and the recommenders an exceptional role model for students and enthusiastic about educating students and stuff alike and stuff alike in issues related to diversity and inclusion in the sciences actively involved in science outreach both locally and internationally and is always encouraging us to learn more about inclusive practices to become the best possible scientists we can be thanks to their support and guidance in data collection and analysis two of the three students in our lab have received JSBS fellowships without support in the lab it would not have been possible to streamline protocols and collect data efficiently so and the winner in this category is Crystal Lee Clythro so the final award in the student council award section is for student excellence in graduate research for this one we had three outstanding candidates Yuko Suzuki, Agnish Barua and Lin Li congratulations to y'all one of the recommenders wrote that antithetical to the prevailing paradigm were in sermon dynamics plays no role this research has demonstrated that moisture driven sermon dynamical processes dictate the post-landfall in dynamics this insight has opened up fundamentally new areas of research with critical implications for forecasting the effect of global warming and the destruction of landfalling hurricanes it is rare to be able to make foundational contributions in a mature field rare still is to do that as outsiders they transformed this almost impossible task possible with exceptional facility of practical thinking a creative and brilliant mind a veritable force of nature and the winner in this category is Lin Li congratulations to all the winners and nominees thank you to all who sent in their nominations those who provided recommendations and the committee members obviously who made the final decisions we hope that in the coming years the student council awards will continue to grow and represent OIST at its best and the final award that we'll be giving out today is was first presented in 2017 the students choice teaching award garners the most involvement of students this award is an opportunity for students to recognize and acknowledge all the moments of all and inspiration they experienced while attending a lecture the onset of the pandemic has made teaching especially hard this year while most institutes had to cancel lectures for weeks and even months on end teaching continued at OIST the faculty reshaped their teaching style and delivered lectures online quickly adapting to the new normal the student assembly would like to thank all the faculty who took that extra step to make their courses more accessible the students teaching award is always hopefully contested with nominees this year's result is a prime example this year the teaching award jointly goes to two professors students were greatly inspired by the meticulous nature and intuitive approach to teaching by both of these professors and it gives me great pleasure to present this year's OIST students teaching awards to professor Marilka for OIST Society and professor Nick Shannon well thank you so much to the student council and big recognition to our very deserved winners of all of those award categories so what better way to introduce all of our new faculty and students to Okinawa than some traditional Okinawan music and dance and singing our next two pieces I'd like to call Chaki Chibana to the stage thank you Chaki Hai Sai, Chuuganabira thank you Kiyomitsu sensei for the perfect introduction welcome to Okinawa to class of 2020 and new faculty members um we would like to welcome you with two pieces of traditional Okinawan music today to welcome you to Okinawa and two onno song the first song is called unna bushi it literally means song of onno song the song of onno song this is the place we are in and the lyrics it's by Nabi a poet from onno song from 300 years ago and she wrote um the government restrictions we stop us from meeting each other but they cannot stop us from falling in love despite all the restrictions and challenges you faced you got here and they couldn't stop you from pursuing your dream I'm really lucky to have you here and this group called Jin Dami we are a group of students, staff and researchers who actually started playing Sanshi at OIST we just wanted to try something that's really Okinawa so you can see the different faces in the units and administration and we're honored to have Nakamo sensei today Sanshi master Nakamo Minu sensei from Nomurari and and for the second song we have um dancers from Naoko Tokumoto and Mr. Takeshi Ige from Tamagu School Kyokusenkai and thank you Ipe Nefe dancers in the backstage and this whole thing is part of to show that Okinawa is welcoming you new students, new faculty members and we hope that you will feel welcomed and start developing your personal connection to Okinawa and Onno Song so let's start your journey with Unna Bushi Song of Unna Please enjoy Kadedifu Bushi combining music and dance it's a song about celebration of the start of a new journey and we do hope you enjoy your new journey and we shall celebrate with you as you go along enjoy Kadedifu Well thank you so much, what a wonderful performance and I'm sure you'll all appreciate the wonderful diversity in this band, in this orchestra that reflects the diversity of the OIST community Thank you all for joining us at this welcome ceremony once again I'd like to say welcome to all of our new faculty, our new students and of course to all the other new staff and researchers who have joined us over the last year we're all part of the OIST community and we want you to all feel at home So thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for your participation I think we can safely call this ceremony to a close, thank you Hello class of 2020 as you have been informed