Masaki Nakamura

Biography

Masaki Nakamura (1974) is associate professor of science studies at Osaka University, Japan. His research interests include science policy and the history of science and technology. His research in the field of the history of science focuses in particular on technical education in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, where science education was institutionally incorporated into the training system of engineers for the first time. Beside the foundation of several engineering schools, public lectures in industrial sciences and the publication of technical books became popular at that time with the development of the industrial revolution. Through the examination of this process, he investigates the changing nature of technical knowledge and the changing relationship among governmental engineers, industrial engineers, and skilled artisans. He also investigates science policy with a special reference to science communication. He is not only a researcher who has a special interest in the public engagement with science and technology and the changing relationship between the scientific community and society at large, but he is also acknowledged as one of the leading practitioners of science communication in Japan. For the past several years, he has deeply engaged with the Japanese science cafe movement, which offers an informal forum for public discussion on the latest scientific issues, and has contributed to the diffusion of science cafes in Japan.