University of Washington(UW) and Tohoku University (TU) had a long history of collaboration in both education and research since early 90’s. This UW's partnership with Tohoku has continued to grow and recently achieved new strategic importance with the opening of the Academic Open Space (AOS) office*. Housed in the College of Engineering, AOS is designed as an administrative framework to catalyze collaborative research, teaching and information exchange and opportunities for joint UW-Tohoku projects. AOS’s focused research areas are: (1) Next generation airplanes, (2) Space and international policy, and (3) Natural disaster and hazard. Primarily focus of the AOS-Fall 2017 is to introduce researchers involved in (1), (2) and (3) from both institutions, industries and government, and to build firm “research matching and connections”.

* http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/14/uw-tohoku-university-establish-academic-open-space-partnership-for-innovations- in-aerospace-clean-energy-disaster-preparedness/.