Jointly organized by chemical societies and institutes from Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and China, the international conference Pacifichem 2015 was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, for six days from December 15 to 20, 2015. We had the opportunity to participate in this event with roughly 16,000 people from 71 countries and regions worldwide. The talks and presentations given at the event covered cutting-edge research across the entire range of the chemical sciences and were all held in one venue, meaning that attendees had the chance to encounter topics and fields that might have been unfamiliar to them. This aspect of the event successfully fostered cross-disciplinary perspectives. I gave a poster presentation at an international conference for the first time, but I felt as if I was able to join in the discussions with a positive spirit partly due to the English language education I have received as part of this program. In the future, I would like to use forums like this to improve my presentation skills even more.

Report: Akira Katsuyama (First-term Student)