Toru H. Okabe (born December 4, 1965) is a Japanese scientist specializing in materials science, environmental science, resource circulation engineering, and rare metals process engineering, particularly for electronic waste. His most recent work involves the advancement of new processing technology to recycle rare metals like niobium, titanium, yttrium, rhenium, neodymium, other lanthanides and precious metals. He is also involved in sustainable urban mining.
Toru H. Okabe graduated from The Japanese School in London, in 1981, and from Senior High School at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 1984. He then received his Bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering, Metallurgy, from Kyoto University, Japan, in 1988 and 1990 respectively. Okabe pursued his doctoral studies in Engineering, Metallurgy and Materials Science, at Kyoto University, during which he developed processing techniques for reactive metals such as titanium and niobium. He received his PhD in 1993.
Supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad), Okabe took up residence for 3 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. He then returned to Japan to become Research Associate at the Institute of Advanced Materials Processing, Tohoku University (currently known as the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, IMRAM) where he remained till the end of 2000.
In 2001, Okabe began his stint at the Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, as an associate professor. He then progressed to professorship, and became the Vice President from 2019 to 2021. Presently, Okabe is serving as the Director-General of the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo.
In 2021, Toru H. Okabe received the Degree of Doctor Honoris Causa at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), for working closely with researchers at NTNU for many years, and was appointed an Honorary Doctor at NTNU.
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