Shōjirō Nishio

is a Japanese information scientist and technology scholar and the 18th president of Osaka University. Having co-authored or co-edited more than 55 books and more than 650 refereed journal or conference papers as well as serving on editorial boards of major information sciences journals, Nishio is considered one of the most prominent and influential researchers on database systems and networks. He became Osaka University's full professor in 1992. Thereafter he has held a number of key leadership positions of Osaka University such as the Founding Director of the Cybermedia Center, Dean of Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Executive Vice President prior to becoming the university's president in 2015. In addition, Nishio has served on numerous committees and governing bodies of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). In his capacity both as a leading computer scientist and president of Japan's leading research university, Nishio has facilitated the formulation of Japan's higher education and science policies and been instrumental in setting their overall directions. Nisho has become a member of the Science Council of Japan, the country's Academy of Science, since 2006 and acted as the Chair of Informatics from 2011 to 2014.