Professor Scott Samuelsen Keynotes Horiba 50th Anniversary in Japan

UC Irvine and Horiba Have Enjoyed Long Relationship

June 2003 - Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center and professor of mechanical engineering, delivered the keynote address at the 50th anniversary celebration of Horiba, Ltd. in January 2003. The celebration was held at the Kyoto International Conference Hall (the site of the global climate change Kyoto Accords) and attended by more than 2,000 guests. Joining Samuelsen in congratulatory remarks were the mayor of Kyoto, the governor of the Kyoto Prefecture, and the board chairman of Kitahama Ltd., a major initial investor in Horiba Ltd.

Atsushi Horiba, president and CEO of Horiba Ltd., invited Samuelsen to participate in the historic event. The relationship between UCI and Horiba Ltd. had its genesis in the early days of the engineering school.

Horiba was an undergraduate student in a UCI school-wide thermodynamics course taught by Samuelsen in 1974. As an electrical engineering major, Horiba subsequently conducted undergraduate research in the UCI Combustion Laboratory and earned a B.S. in 1975. He received an M.S. degree in 1977 in electrical engineering under the mentorship of UCI engineering professor Hideya Gamo. His graduate student research topic was laser energy propagation through the atmosphere, where Horiba "beamed" laser light between the Engineering Tower and Physical Sciences Unit I (today, Rowland Hall).

From that beginning, the relationship with UCI has grown. For example, Horiba Ltd. is a founding and sustaining industry member of the UCI-led Pacific Rim Consortium on Energy, Combustion, and the Environment (PARCON). Established in 1992, PARCON today encompasses universities and industries in six Pacific Rim countries with the goal to accelerate the development and deployment of environmentally responsible advanced power generation.

In addition, Horiba Ltd. has assigned a research scientist to an 18-month intern appointment at either the UCI Combustion Laboratory or the National Fuel Cell Research Center for more than a decade. This year, the eighth such appointment is held by Tomoshi Yoshimura.

Horiba Ltd. was founded by Masao Horiba to produce and market a pH meter. Today, Horiba Ltd. manufactures and sells a wide range of scientific analyzers, engine emission analyzers, environment-monitoring equipment, analyzers, and measuring equipment used in the semi-conductor industry, and medical analyzers. The company employs more than 3,500 at offices, research facilities, and subsidiary companies around the world (www.horiba.com).