Daisuke Minakata, Civil and Environmental Engineering

I was born and raised in Japan. I came to the US for the first time as a high school exchange student, just for one month. I lived in Virginia, in a place called Silverplate, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I went to Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology High School, which was the sister school of my Japanese high school, and one of the nation’s top scientific high schools. And I did like it. This triggered my study abroad dream. I was impressed by the high school education system in the US. It’s one that never just looks for the systematic solution, but values process, logic, and discussion-based classes.
I loved watching a beautiful image of planet Earth, one with a very clear sky and blue water, during my high school days. However, as I began to learn how life on Earth suffers many difficult environmental problems, including air pollution and water contamination, I also learned that environmental engineers can be leaders who help solve the Earth’s most difficult sustainability problems. That is when I decided to become an engineer.
In my undergraduate curriculum, the water quality and treatment classes I took were the toughest subjects to get an A in. I had to work the hardest to understand the content. So, naturally, I decided to enter this discipline as I got to know about water engineering more. And then, there’s our blue planet, the image. Water makes the Earth look blue from space.

While in college, during my graduate studies, I took a one-year leave from Kyoto University in Japan and studied at University of Pennsylvania as a visiting graduate student. Then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in order to get a PhD at Georgia Institute of Technology. I accepted my position at Michigan Tech in 2013.
I’m now a father of two. Both are Yoopers, born here in the UP of Michigan. My wife and I really enjoy skiing (downhill and cross country) with the kids each winter. I do like all the cities I have lived in. The place I am currently living is our two kids’ birthplace, and our real home. Of course it’s our favorite place, after our Japanese hometown. –Daisuke Minakata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering #mtuhumans

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.