Ph.D. (Psychology), University of Illinois, Research associate at University of Michigan, School of Public Health, Fellow at National Institute on Aging, U.S., Research Professor, Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan, Professor at Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology and Faculty of Letters, The University of Tokyo, Project Professor at Institute of Gerontology, The University of Tokyo, After serving as Vice President of the Science Council of Japan, she assumed her current position in May 2020.
Her specialty is gerontology.

For 35 years since 1987, she has been following more than 7,000 elderly people to study the dynamic changes among health, economy, and human relations, which are the main factors of well-being of the elderly, in order to accumulate scientific data on the changes in the lives of the elderly as they age, to systematically understand the interconnections, and to identify issues.

Since returning to Japan, she has shifted her focus to action research with the main objective of problem solving and has been pursuing a way of life and society appropriate for the 100-year life age through community development that responds to the needs of a society with longevity and the "Living Lab," a place for open innovation where industry, government, academia, and the private sector co-create. Recently, she has been advocating and conducting empirical research on extending engaged life expectancy which is second only to the average life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.