Tribute to Yohsuke Kamide

 

Konnichiwa!

I am extremely honoured to participate in this memorial symposium together with such distinguished colleagues from Japan and from all over the world. The wide geographical spread of speakers demonstrates the international recognition of Kamide’s work and of his scientific and personal irradiance and heritage.

I am very moved and at the same time delighted to share my humble memories from Kamide sensei. Indeed I could talk for hours about my experience from meeting him and enjoying his mentorship, but I have to do this in ten minutes, which means that this is only a small selection of my memories.

My very first contact with Kamide sensei was back in 1994, when I was a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. At that time, I was working on the dynamics of magnetospheric substorms, and I received a letter from Kamide sensei, who encouraged me to turn my attention to magnetic storm dynamics. Of course it was a surprise and a great joy to receive a communication from a living legend and I was very much influenced from this encouragement. This led to a series of very interesting and impactful studies, many of which were in collaboration with Kamide himself.

I then received an invitation to present my work at the 21st IUGG Assembly in Boulder, Colorado, in July 1995. This presentation marked my initiation in magnetic storm research. 

In the meanwhile I moved to Greece and in September 1997 Kamide sensei invited me to participate in the 4th International Conference on Substorms, which was held at Hamana Lake in March 1998. 

For me it was a great pleasure to come back to Japan, after my very first trip in 1990, when I had come to Hakone for the so-called ICS-0, namely the Chapman Conference on Magnetospheric Substorms. During that conference I also met in person, for the first time, Nishida sensei and Machida sensei. 

At ICS-4 Kamide san invited me to come to STELab as a visiting Associate Professor, which I gladly accepted. And so it came that I spend three months of 1998 in Toyokawa, a small town in the outskirts of Nagoya. 

During that stay, Kamide san was extremely helpful with all of my practical problems, including for example advice for train travels, or introduction to Japanese gastronomy, which was indeed very precious for a gaijin. In May 1998 we travelled together to Tokyo for the Japan Earth and Planetary Science Joint Meeting.

Travelling to Tokyo by Shinkansen in May 1998

In anticipation of the conference participation in the Japanese capital, I took the initiative and looked for rooms and found some in a hotel called Shinjuku Park Hotel. Kamide sensei was a bit sceptical about the hotel, as he had never heard about it, but nevertheless he let me make the booking despite him being skeptical. I think he did it just for the sake of encouraging the young European to explore Japan. This was one of his most important virtues: even when he was skeptical or even when he disagreed, he would encourage you to explore your ideas and try yourself. I believe that this is one of the highest qualities of mentoring, and Kamide sensei excelled in this … 

In April 1999 I had the pleasure of organizing the Brazil VI meeting in Athens, and welcome Kamide sensei in Greece ...

(from right to left) Kamide sensei in Athens, in April 1999, together with Bruce Tsurutani, Vytenis Vasyliunas, Walter Gonzalez, and myself.

From my talk at the Kamide Memorial Meeting, today

My last meeting with Kamide sensei, in his native Hokkaido, November 2017