I started my study at Department of Geography, Waseda University (Tokyo) in 1983. I studied Physical Geography and finished my diploma thesis on late Quaternary glacier fluctuations at Northern Japanese Alps. Then I moved to Sapporo to study Glacial Geomorphology at Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University. After two years in Master Course, I completed my Master's thesis on Late Quaternary glacier fluctuations at Langtang Valley, Nepal Himalaya under the supervison of Prof. Yugo Ono. I continued this theme in Doctor Course of the same University and finished it by submitting Doctoral dissertation entitled "Glacial fluctuations and cryogenic environments in the Langtang Valley Nepal Himalaya" in 1993.

From 1991 to 2004, I worked at the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University as an Assitant Professor of Glacier and Ice Sheet Research Group and later as an Associate Professor of Experimental and Theoretical Glaciology Group. I have been involved with researches on avalanche, snow cover, snow patch, permafrost, and most intensively glaciers and ice sheet.

I studied glacier fluctuations and paleoclimate by means of ice core analyses on physical properties, water isotopes, and ion chemistry. I am particularly interested in ice cores recovered at high mountains. I was involved with ice core drilling campaigns at Yala glacier (Himalaya), Austfonna (Svalbard), Ushkovsky ice cap (Kamchatka), Tyndall glacier (Patagonia), Mt. Logan (Canada) and Mt. Wrangell (Alaska). I was also a member of DOME FUJI Drilling Project at Queen Maud Land, Antarctica from 1993-1995. Current reserach theme is to clarify impact of decadal and interdecadal climate changes on cryosphere over the North Pacific Region.

In April 2005,, I moved to Research Institute for Humanity and Nature at Kyoto to launch a Research Project entiled "Amur-Okhotsk Project 2005-2009". This is a project assessing the human impacts in the AmurRiver basin on the marine ecology in the Sea of Okhotsk and the northern North Pacific. The key element supporting the biomass production in the Sea of Okhotsk is considered to be “dissolved iron” from the Amur River. Primary goal of the project is, therefore, to elucidate the mechanism how the dissolved iron and fulvic acids are formed and transported to the ocean both by the Amur River and through the atmosphere, and how the flux changes will affect the phytoplankton production in the Sea of Okhotsk and the northern North Pacific. We will then clarify this "Giant Fish Feeding Forest System" by quantifying anthropogenic impacts on the flux changes to the ocean.