Topological Polymer Chemistry Concepts and Practices

Yasuyuki Tezuka is a professor emeritus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He served as the Asian editor (2006–2011) for Reactive and Functional Polymers and continued as the editor-in-chief (2012–2018).  He currently holds the position of honorary editor of the journal.  He completed his B.S. (1976) and M.S. (1978) degrees in synthetic chemistry at The University of Tokyo.  Subsequently, he moved to Ghent University (Belgium) in 1979 as a fellowship student of the Belgian (Flemish) government, and completed his doctorate there in 1982. Returning to Japan, he began his academic career as an assistant professor at the Nagaoka University of Technology and was promoted to associate professor in 1991.  In 1994, he moved to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, where he served as a full professor from 2003 until his retirement in 2019.  He received the Tokyo Tech Award for Best Teacher, 2004; the Award of the Society of Polymer Science (SPSJ), Japan (2010); and the SPSJ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Polymer Science and Technology (2018).  His research activities have focused on topological polymer chemistry, designing topologically unique macromolecular architectures, and uncovering their topology effects.   

Tetsuo Deguchi is a professor in the Department of Physics, Ochanomizu University.  He received his B.S. (1987) and M.S. (1989) degrees in physics at The University of Tokyo.  He began his academic career as an assistant professor at The University of Tokyo in 1990, where he was awarded his Ph.D. degree (“Multivariable Invariants of Colored Links and Related Solvable Models in Statistical Mechanics”) in 1992.  He moved to the Department of Physics in Ochanomizu University as an associate professor in 1994 and has served as a full professor since 2001.  His research activities have focused on 1) statistical physics of polymers, in particular, that of topological polymers such as ring polymers, multiple-ring polymers, polymers of theta graphs, and complete bipartite graphs, 2) molecular dynamic simulation of topological polymers in solution and in melt, 3) non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems, thermalization, and equilibration of isolated quantum systems, 4) mathematical physics of exactly solvable models in statistical physics and quantum dynamics, and 5) integrable quantum spin chains solved by the Bethe ansatz method.