Professor Furukawa received his B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Waseda University, Japan, in 1990, and an M.Eng. (Research) in Mechatronic Engineering from University of Sydney, Australia, in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Quantum Engineering and Systems Science from University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1996. He has extensive research experience in the field of robotics and computational mechanics. He has published over 300 journal and refereed conference papers, served on Editorial Boards for five international journals, and as an international organizing committee member for over 10 international conferences and won a number of career research awards and paper awards.