Updated: April 2026
Overview
The lab accepts Master’s and Doctoral students — both Kanagawa University undergraduates and students from other universities.
Considering graduate studies? First read the lab’s basic policies on the Join Us page, then arrange a meeting with Koike. Reading first makes the meeting more useful: graduate study is a multi-year commitment, and once you already know how the lab works you can ask about what actually concerns you.
Table of Contents
About Master’s Program
What We Aim For
Build on your graduation research and take on bigger work. Two years is enough time to go beyond a one-shot project and pursue a question to a depth that produces shareable results, so the master’s program is where you move from learning how research is done to actually doing it:
- Presentations at domestic and international conferences
- Learning to write papers
- Improving problem-finding and problem-solving skills
What We Expect
Choose a focus and produce results within two years. Two years is short, so narrowing down beats spreading thin — a finished result on one question is worth more than unfinished work on several. This matters beyond the degree, too: finishing work on short cycles toward deadlines is a skill that carries over to most kinds of work.
Track Record
Your starting point doesn’t matter. Many students who worked closely with Koike have gone on to present at international conferences and publish in journals. Results come from continued discussion and steady work, not from where you began, which means what you can do now predicts far less than how you engage over the two years.
About Doctoral Program
What We Aim For
If you are serious about becoming a researcher, the lab will support you.
The lab values proposing and naming new concepts — not just organizing existing knowledge, but proposing new ways of thinking. A doctorate is meant to add something that was not there before, and a new concept, once named, gives other people a handle to build on. Organizing what is already known does not move the field forward in the same way.
What We Expect
The doctorate is about becoming an independent researcher rather than completing assigned tasks, so we expect you to:
- Establish your own research theme. A researcher has to be able to find and frame questions, not only answer ones handed to them.
- Present and publish at international conferences and journals. That is where work is tested by people who think hard about the same problems, and where it earns the standing to be built on.
- Mentor junior students. Teaching forces you to articulate what you actually understand, and without that hand-off the lab’s knowledge would not pass down.
- Contribute to the research community. Research advances by giving back, not only by taking, and you are training to be part of that exchange.
From Other Universities
Students from other universities are welcome. Email us in advance to arrange a lab visit and discuss possible research topics. What matters most is fit with how the lab works, and that is hard to judge from a webpage. A visit lets both sides check it before you commit two or more years.
For admission details, see the Kanagawa University Graduate School of Engineering page.
Contact
Questions about graduate studies and lab visits are always welcome.
Email:
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