Professor Yoichi Kobayashi gave a lecture to third-year students at Ritsumeikan Junior High School

On December 16, 2024, Ritsumeikan Junior High School and RARA collaborated to hold a seminar aimed at conveying the joy and excitement of research to third-year students. Professor Yoichi Kobayashi (RARA Associate Fellow), who took to the stage as a speaker, outlined the process of going from university to becoming a researcher, as well as the research he is currently working on, and imparted a message to the students who are about to choose their career path, saying “I hope you will take the first step towards what you are interested in.”

Following the lecture, Prof. Kobayashi answered in an earnest manner such questions as those from a student who was inspired by his story of how he overcame an aversion to English to forge a career as an early-career researcher with the JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships at the University of Toronto in Canada, and from a student who is interested in the social issue of organofluorine compounds (PFAS). Moreover, in relation to the various chemical reaction experiments presented in the lecture and the episode of discovering that organofluorine compounds (PFAS) can be broken down using photocatalysts, there were comments made by the students about their aspiration to experience the joy and satisfaction of proving one’s own hypothesis through experimentation themselves, concluding the event on a high note.