Susumu Kitagawa worked in chemistry at a period when the field was still deciding what counted as an answer.
Susumu Kitagawa was born at Kyoto in 1951. His recorded nationality is Japan. He was educated at Kyoto University.
Twentieth-century science was collaborative, expensive and political: the questions were pursued by teams, and the answers had consequences that reached well past the laboratory.
His working life was spent at Kyoto University, where the work centred on chemistry.
Chemistry is the science of what matter actually does, and it moves one stubbornly repeated experiment at a time.
That the work was done from Japan matters to the story. Science has never been evenly distributed, and where a person is based has always shaped which problems are reachable and whose results get read.
Recognition followed: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2025).
What that record amounts to is a body of chemistry that later workers could build on without re-checking. That is the practical test of a scientific life, and it is a harder one than fame.
Susumu Kitagawa is still working, and the final assessment of his contribution has not been made - the ordinary condition of a living scientist.
Achievements
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry — 2025
- Held posts at Kyoto University
- Educated at Kyoto University
- Fields of research: chemistry
