Hiroshi Akatsuka received a master's degree from the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1987, and a Dr.-Ing. degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1995. He has been an associate professor at the Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology. His current research interests include atomic and molecular processes in plasmas, plasma diagnostics by spectroscopic methods and supersonically flowing plasmas as rarefied gas dynamics. Dr. Akatsuka is a member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics, IEEE, the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan, the Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research, the Physical Society of Japan, the Spectroscopical Society of Japan, and the Atomic Energy Society, Japan.