Departures of note

Hideki Shirakawa was a Japanese chemist and professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, best known for overturning the long-held belief that plastics cannot conduct electricity. Born in Tokyo in 1936, he studied chemical engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in 1966 and later worked as an assistant in the Chemical Resources Laboratory.

While at Tokyo Tech, Shirakawa discovered a method to synthesize polyacetylene as a thin film, a plastic that had previously only been produced as a powder. In 1976 he joined Alan MacDiarmid's laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, where, together with physicist Alan Heeger, the three demonstrated that doping polyacetylene with iodine vapor dramatically enhanced its electrical conductivity. This work laid the foundation for the field of conductive polymers, which later found applications in touch panels, batteries, and other electronic components.

In 2000, Shirakawa, MacDiarmid, and Heeger were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of conductive polymers. He also received Japan's Order of Culture and was named a Person of Cultural Merit that same year. He served as a professor at the University of Tsukuba from 1982 until his retirement in 2000, and was a member of the Japan Academy. He died on August 24, 2026, at the age of 90.