Dr Satria Zulkarnaen Bisri was invited by DiRECT as a guest speaker for the 2024 International Students' Gathering on Working in Japan.

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Dr Satria Zulkarnaen Bisri (Physics/Indonesia)

Profile
Dr Bisri is from Indonesia, and obtained his master's degree and PhD at the Tohoku University Institute for Materials Research, graduating in 2011.
He is now an associate professor of applied physics and chemical engineering at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.

Presentation

Dr Bisri's presentation was titled 'Million Miles of Adventures.' In this talk, not only did he discuss his career and research history, but also how he and his wife (a fellow scientist from his undergraduate course back in Indonesia) overcame the difficulties of juggling a long-distance relationship during their respective postgraduate studies in Japan and the Netherlands.

Dr Bisri obtained a bachelor's degree in physics from Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia and received an award to perform short research at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. During this time, he studied carbon nanotubes for his final-year project, and the textbook he used was co-authored by a Japanese researcher, Prof Riichiro Saito. After contacting Prof Saito, he was introduced to the Tohoku University IGPAS Programme and decided to continue his postgraduate studies here at Tohoku under Prof Yoshihiro Iwasa. After he arrived, however, he and his advisor quickly changed their research topic completely, and Dr Bisri began researching organic semiconductors instead.

Dr Bisri told us about the 'international policy' of his research lab. Seminars were held in English; foreign students, guest visitors, and researchers were all accepted; and students attended both Japanese and international research conferences.

He then discussed his decision to pursue a postdoc at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, which he said was 'partially because of research, partially because of love.' His wife, who was his classmate during his bachelor's degree, had continued on to her own master's and PhD in the Netherlands; and the two had become a couple while they were located on opposite ends of the Earth. They were married in the short time between their master's and PhD, and continued their relationship long-distance for another three years during their PhDs. They did their best to stay in contact and visit each other during trips to international conferences in their respective fields. It was thanks to Dr Bisri's hard work during his PhD attending seminars and performing collaborative experiments with researchers in Europe that he managed to obtain his postdoc position at the University of Groningen.

After Dr Bisri's postdoc and his wife's PhD, the couple had to decide where to go next. Dr Bisri called this the 'Two-Body Problem of a Scientist Couple' in his presentation. Not only did the two have to find a location with the correct expertise and specialist equipment for each of their fields, but they also had to consider the cost of living and the upbringing of their first child. Fortunately, they received offers from RIKEN, and Dr Bisri became a research scientist there. He also got a concurrent visiting associate professor position at Tokyo Institute of Technology to supervise joint program PhD students.

Finally, in 2022, Dr Bisri obtained a tenure-track position as an associate professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology which was ideally suited for him, as it was particularly geared towards researchers with research experience outside Japan. Dr Bisri concluded his talk with the following 'caveats' which he wanted us all to remember:

"Pursue what you really want to do in life"
"Try to become a global citizen"
"Collaborate"
"Broader perspective"
"The right place and the right time are important factors to do good research"
"Work-life balance is important"

Q&A Session

Q: Are you satisfied with your salary in academia?
A: I find it to be okay, but of course it depends on your lifestyle. I read online articles that professors in universities are ranked third in Japan in terms of professional salary. But different universities will have different pay rates and different cities will have different costs of living. If you want good pay as a researcher, certain institutions such as JAXA and RIKEN can offer very good salaries, even for postdocs. Also, your pay will continue to increase as you work and obtain higher positions. However, compared to other places, such as Singapore and Europe, the nominal value of pay in Japan is lower; but of course the cost of living must also be accounted for. Me and my wife found daycare costs to be very high in the Netherlands, for example.

Q: Do you speak Japanese?
A: I can speak 'Drama Japanese!' My colleagues like to say that talking with me is like talking with someone out of a Japanese drama. At the end of the day, what's important is just to speak as much as possible. I tell my students that the language of science is not native English, but broken English.

Q: What skills were necessary for you to get your current position?
A: During your master's degree it's important to pick up as many things as possible from your advisor. The relationship between you and your advisor during postgrad is like that of a protégé and mentor. Try to absorb as much as you can. As I mentioned in my talk, the main currencies in academia are your papers, presentations, and research funding. One skill you will need for all of these is communication. Try to get your ideas across to other people. A great thing about Japan is how they have weekly seminars where you need to give presentations. Another important thing to do is to socialise with other experts in your field. Start with the close associates of your advisor. Ask them to explain their research to you.