Professor Hitoshi Murayama, Former Director, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), University of Tokyo
Murayama, the founder of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute and chair of the decadal P5 report on particle physics, believes that science is for everyone.
Theoretical physicist Hitoshi Murayama has spent his career studying the fundamental building blocks of matter — tiny particles like quarks and neutrinos. And like many scientists, he’s crossed continents to do it.
“I hope people can see that science can’t be owned by a particular country, company, or university,” says Murayama. “It’s a common pursuit for everybody.”
Murayama is the recipient of the 2026 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, which annually recognizes a scientist for outstanding contributions to physics and exceptional skills in lecturing to diverse audiences. Murayama is recognized for his work in “theoretical and experimental particle physics, as well as inspirational public outreach and effective science advocacy.”
“It certainly is a great honor, especially looking back at the past recipients — they are all big names,” says Murayama. “And because this prize is coming from APS as a whole, […] it’s a recognition from the physics-wide community, and that makes it all the more special.”
Born in Japan, Murayama lived in divided Germany for part of his childhood. After completing his doctorate in physics at the University of Tokyo, he left Japan in 1993 for a postdoctoral position at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, joining the physics faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1995.
APS News spoke with Murayama to learn more about what inspires him, his perspective on the role of science in society, and his hopes for the future of physics.
Which scientists have been your biggest inspiration?
Growing up in the 1960s, Japan was often criticized, especially by the United States, for stealing technologies and mass-producing cheap goods but not inventing anything. When Sin-Itiro Tomonaga received the Nobel Prize in 1965, I was able to see somebody who was innovative and creative and original — and he was coming from Japan, in the area of theoretical physics. That was a major part of my inspiration.
What’s it like being split across the U.S. and Japan?
Logistically, it’s complicated, because it’s always a long trip there and back. But I was able to expand Japan’s scientific horizon by founding the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), which now has not only theoretical physicists involved, but also experimentalists, astronomers, and mathematicians. Now, I see where my field sits within the scope of the broader scientific landscape. [Talking] to people from other areas, like mathematics, I end up finding answers to my own questions.
IPMU has also had an impact on Japanese academia. For example, it started the system of dual appointments, and it allowed the salaries to be adjusted for new faculty hires. It had a major systemic effect, and research there today is flourishing.
What other contributions to science are you proud of?
My most recent contribution was chairing P5, the long-term planning committee for particle physics, meant to guide the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation in how they implement programs for the next 10 years. That was a difficult process because our community is so creative — we had to say no to many great ideas. The fact that we managed to keep the community together was deeply gratifying.
One of the nine popular science books you’ve authored is What is the Universe Made Of?, published in 2011. What do we know about the universe now that we didn’t then?
When I wrote that book, the Higgs boson hadn’t been discovered. When I was younger, I hated the idea of the Higgs boson. I was hoping that it didn’t exist, but I was proven wrong. And of course, as a scientist, I’m happy that I was proven wrong.
The remainder of the book is about dark matter and dark energy. That was unknown back then, and it’s still unknown today. So that hasn’t changed, but we are learning a lot — not what it is, but mostly what it may not be.
On those topics, what has been your most important contribution?
[Presenting] something that can be searched for concretely is a part of the job of being a theoretical physicist. In 1998, I came up with a version of supersymmetry that was concrete enough for experimentalists to look for it. I admire experimentalists because they can talk directly to the universe and hear back.
They didn’t find anything, so, in a sense, I was proven wrong. But that’s great — I heard back from the universe. It was an important contribution in my mind.
You’ve worked on the Scientific Strategy Committee of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan since 2019. What can we look forward to in astronomy?
Now that the Artemis project is ongoing, we could bring radio telescopes to the moon. Our planet is already polluted by radio waves — cell phones, Wi-Fi, TV, and technology are making it increasingly difficult to listen to faint sounds from distant objects. The best place to go is the far side of the moon, where there’s no radio coming from our planet.
[For example,] the stars being studied by the James Webb telescope may have been born when the universe was only several hundred million years old. We haven’t seen anything before then, except for the cosmic [microwave] background. In between, there is a period we call the ‘dark ages.’ But they weren’t really dark — we just haven’t detected [the radio waves] yet because they’re so faint. With a telescope on the moon, we might be able to do it.
You’ve also been involved in the KamLAND project. What’s that been like?
We were looking at neutrinos from the nuclear power plants in Japan. The experiment was designed to observe whether neutrinos oscillate. Since the discovery of neutrinos, no one had seen this behavior, but with KamLAND, we were able to see them disappear and reappear.
One policy of the collaboration was that you had to work on the instrument, [so] I took shifts and cleaned. I walked into the mine and got into the stainless-steel experiment tank, which had to be incredibly clean, with radioactive contaminants less than the level of 10-16 — a mind-bogglingly small amount. I took a piece of cloth and a bottle of alcohol, and then I would wipe, wipe, wipe. It was interesting for me, as a theoretical physicist, to see what it takes to get meaningful data.
In your 2014 address to the United Nations celebrating CERN’s 60th anniversary, you said “CERN embodies this idea that basic science unifies people from all nations.” Say more.
[I believe] that science is for everybody. Not everyone thinks that way, especially in our current environment. But science is based on human curiosity. When we ask questions like, “Why are we here?” and “Where did we come from?”, that tells us that science is about how we try to understand ourselves — and anybody can relate to that.
Liz Boatman is a materials scientist and science writer based in Minnesota.