Interactions News Wire #51-08 10 July 2008 http://www.interactions.org ************************************************************* Source: KEK Content: News Release Date Issued: 10 July 2008 ************************************************************* Yoji Totsuka has passed away Yoji Totsuka, 66, former director general of KEK, died of a cancer on Thursday, July 10, at a hospital. Yoji began his career at the University of Tokyo in 1972 as a research associate and stayed at DESY on the DASP experiment. In 1981, he joined Prof. Masatoshi Koshiba to build Kamiokande, a large water cerenkov detector which observed neutrinos from a super nova SN1987. In 1988, he led the construction of SuperKamiokande detector, which led him and his colleagues to the discovery of the atmospheric neutrino oscillation. In October 2002, he moved to KEK and became the director general in April 2003, and worked for 3 years. He is a professor emeritus of KEK and the University of Tokyo. He received numerous awards including the Order of Culture of Japan, the Bruno Pontecorvo Prize in 2004 and the Franklin Institute Awards in 2007. The funeral service for Yoji Totsuka will take place at Aoyama Funeral Hall in Tokyo at 12:30 on July 12. Contact: Youhei Morita Head, Public Relations Office High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) tel +81-29-879-6046 fax +81-29-879-6049