Hajime received his BSc and Ph.D. from Kyoto University, and then became Assistant Professor at Tsukuba University, and in 2002 became Associate Professor in Hokkaido University, where he is still based as a Professor, supervising a group of >20 students. Hajime has won several awards over his career to date including the SSOCJ Fujifilm Functional Materials Science Award in 2017.
His research group has three main topics. The first is the development of new reactions for organic synthesis using copper, boron, and other organo-metallic compounds. The second is the development of new materials that show interesting optical properties in response to mechanical stress such as grinding. And the third topic is mechano-chemical synthesis. This solvent-free approach promises to be more efficient and environmentally friendly than current light-activated reaction mechanisms.
Calculations constitute an increasingly important technology for the development of new chemical reactions, because experimental chemists have so far relied mainly on experimental screening or serendipity. But computational methods, especially the AFIR method, can predict new reactions and thus guide our search.