Makiko Kobayashi holds a B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Chiba University, Japan, obtained in 1997 and 1999, respectively. She pursued her Ph.D. degree at McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, completing it in 2004. From 2004 to 2011, Dr. Kobayashi contributed her expertise at the Industrial Materials Institute, a division of the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC). Since 2012, she has held the position of Associate Professor at Kumamoto University, and in 2022, she was promoted to Professor. Dr. Kobayashi's research focuses on the development of porous piezoelectric materials for high-temperature ultrasonic transducers and various applications. Her notable achievements include receiving the Young Scientist Award at the 26th Symposium on Ultrasonic Electronics in 2005, and being honored with the NRC's 2022 IP Achievement Award. Moreover, Dr. Kobayashi has been a co-founder and technical advisor for CAST Co., Ltd. since 2019.
