He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from Graduate School of Science, Department of Chemistry, The University of Tokyo. During his Ph.D. course in 1994, he moved to Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo as a research associate. In 1998, he became a lecturer, and then he moved to Institute of Materials Science, University of Tsukuba as a lecturer in 2001. He was promoted to be an associate professor, Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba, in 2004.

Since 2010, he has been a professor in Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University. He is interested in the development of heterogeneous catalysts for C-O hydrogenolysis and H₂-driven deoxydehydration for the synthesis of biomass-derived chemicals, and non-reductive CO₂ conversion with alcohols/amines. He has served as an Associate Editor of Green Chemistry, RSC. Number of publications > 450, total citation >30,000, h-index 104.