Message from Dr. Akimoto, TIAS 2nd batch alumni

Hello, I’m Shigeharu Akimoto and I am a TIAS 2nd batch alumni. I am very honored to share my recent academic and career path with you all!

I graduated from TIAS in 2018 and then entered a doctoral program at the University of Tsukuba, which I graduated from this March. When I think back from 2018 when I graduated from TIAS to now, it seems like it has been a very difficult 5 years for the sporting world for a number of reasons. Although there were many positive aspects to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, some people may have felt differently and lost their “faith in sports” as they didn’t feel that holding the Games during a pandemic was the right thing to do. There were also direct impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic and its call for “social distance,” meaning that sports that inevitably involve contact were fundamentally and significantly impacted.

Nevertheless, I believe that everyone in TIAS, including myself, believes in the value of sport as a vehicle for people to connect with each other.

There may be a lot of issues in sports that we need to solve, but I feel that TIAS is a place where we can find many clues to help us solve them. In fact, I can’t count the number of times I have benefited from my experience at TIAS in my research and educational activities. Let’s develop the future of sports from the TIAS community!

researchmap: https://researchmap.jp/shigeharu.akimoto?lang=en

Award from Chair of Doctoral Program in Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba

My laboratory at Heisei International University where I have been working since April 2023