Orbituary: to Professor Kazuhiro Otsuka (1937-2023)

Professor Kazuhiro Otsuka passed away on 19^th August, 2023, after a long and productive career researching aspects of shape memory alloys and superelastcity. His M.S. at the University of Illinois in 1966 under the supervision of Professor Marvin Wayman, not only was the commencement of a long-lasting friendship but also put him in contact with Professor Ken’ichi Shimizu from Osaka University where he found his first appointment on his return to Japan. There followed a D.Eng from the University of Tokyo in 1972, a promotion to Associate Professor at Osaka in 1972 and a Professorship at the University of Tsukuba in 1979. On becoming Professor Emeritus from the University of Tsukuba in 2000, he was able to continue his productive research career at the National Institute for Materials Science and the National Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, both in Tsukuba, until his retirement in March 2017.

Some of Professor Otsuka’s most significant research outputs will be summarised during this tribute, as well as his regular contributions to the international scientific community via the ICOMAT and Solid®Solid Phase Transformations series. His most memorable legacies to the field of shape memory and superelasticity are his book, “Shape Memory Materials” (Cambridge University Press, 1988) in collaboration with Professor Wayman, and his publication on Ti-Ni-based alloys, “Physical Metallurgy of Ti-Ni-based Shape Memory Alloys” K. Otsuka and X. Ren, in Progress in Materials Science, 50: 511-678 (2005).