NAIST held a combined Honorary Doctoral Degree conferment ceremony for Professor Raymond L. Rodriguez and International Exchange Day 2009 on December 14.

An inaugural Honorary Doctoral Degree, awarded to a scientist who has made a great contribution to internationalization at NAIST, was conferred on Professor Raymond L. Rodriguez of the University of California, Davis. In commemoration, Professor Rodriguez gave an academic lecture and spoke about his longstanding relationship with NAIST.

We invited 22 consular officials from 12 countries (China, Indonesia, South Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, Russia, Thailand, U.K., U.S.A., and Vietnam) to a ceremony for our inaugural "International Exchange Day" to promote future international exchanges at NAIST. They were given a laboratory tour and tea party to interact with our students from overseas.

Following the tea party, president Isogai presented the Honorary Doctoral Degree to Professor Rodriguez, and Professor Rodriguez made a speech. After the ceremony, Dr. Shinmyo announced the establishment of a Center for International Relations, which will play a central role in the promotion of globalization in education and research at NAIST.

At a Reception afterwards, our students and researchers from overseas, faculty and staff members promoted exchanges with consular officials, and four consular representatives gave us greetings messages. We took advantage of this opportunity to broadcast our education and research activities to consular officials. The International Exchange Day was considered to have been a great success.

Click here to access the PDF file of Professor Rodriguez's speech.
Click here to access the video content of the Honorary Doctoral Degree conferment ceremony.