News — The University of California San Diego, together with Point Loma Nazarene University, will co-host the 24th annual Kyoto Prize Symposium on March 12-13, 2025. The event is free and open to the public.
The Kyoto Prize is Japan’s highest private award for global visionaries who have made scientific and cultural advancements that benefit humankind. The esteemed 2024 Kyoto Prize laureates are John Pendry for Advanced Technology, Paul F. Hoffman for Basic Sciences, and William Forsythe for Arts and Philosophy.
The Kyoto Prize Symposium will feature talks by each of the laureates as part of public presentations at UC San Diego. is now open for the Kyoto Prize Symposium.
Additionally, a fundraising gala to support the Kyoto Prize Symposium scholarships and youth outreach program will be held on March 12 at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. Please visit to purchase tickets for the black-tie optional event.
The late Dr. Kazuo Inamori established the nonprofit Inamori Foundation in 1984 based on his life philosophy and founded the Kyoto Prize as its primary activity. Since the inception of San Diego’s Kyoto Prize Symposium in 2002, local events have generated more than $5 million in educational funding and college scholarships to the San Diego/Baja region. The is a San Diego-based nonprofit established to support the Kyoto Prize Symposium and Kyoto Prize Symposium Scholarship programs.
Inamori, who founded Kyocera Corporation in 1959, established San Diego-based Kyocera International, Inc., just 10 years later as his first subsidiary company outside of Japan. Today, the Kyocera Group includes nearly 300 companies and more than 79,000 employees worldwide.
UC San Diego and PLNU are proud to co-host the Kyoto Prize Symposium with the following presentations, featuring the influential contributions by the Kyoto Prize laureates in their respective fields. All presentations will be held in UC San Diego’s Price Center Ballroom - East.
Paul F. Hoffman
Kyoto Prize Laureate in Basic Sciences
Wednesday, March 12, 10-11:30 a.m. PDT
Paul F. Hoffman, an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, has conducted groundbreaking research in the “Snowball Earth” (global freezing) hypothesis and plate tectonics occurring in the first half of the Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history. After earning his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, Hoffman served the Geological Survey of his native Canada for 24 years followed by teaching at Harvard University and conducting related research in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has geologically demonstrated the occurrence of the postulated global freeze, so-called “Snowball Earth”, which drove the rapid diversification of animals in the Cambrian period approximately 520 million years ago.
“Paul Hoffman has carried out decades of extensive and thorough geological fieldwork to create a clear and convincing case that there were 'Snowball Earth' episodes hundreds of millions of years ago,” said Ian Eisenman, professor of Climate, Atmospheric Sciences and Physical Oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “During these episodes the climate was almost unimaginably colder than today, with ice cover extending to the tropics. The recognition that these episodes occurred in the distant past has broadened our understanding of what is possible for the Earth’s climate system, with a wide array of implications for many fields of research. As such, Paul has boldly transcended traditional disciplinary barriers, investigating the causes and consequences of Snowball Earth events in contexts that traditionally fall in many different university departments, including geology, physics, biology and chemistry.”
John Pendry
Kyoto Prize Laureate in Advanced Technology
Wednesday, March 12, 1-2:30 p.m. PDT
John Pendry serves as a professor of Theoretical Solid State Physics at Imperial College London. After earning his Ph.D. at University of Cambridge, Pendry’s initial research concerned a low-energy electron diffraction theory for examining and measuring the surface of materials for practical purposes. He theoretically demonstrated that materials with electromagnetic properties not found in nature, such as negative-refractive-index materials (metamaterials), can be created by designing microstructures smaller than the wavelength of the target electromagnetic waves. This groundwork helped create innovative materials such as “superlenses” with subwavelength resolution and “invisibility cloaks.”
“It is remarkable the impact that Sir John Pendry’s insight and ideas have had on the scientific and engineering fields,” said Michael Frazier, associate professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “In the last two decades, the metamaterial concept has expanded beyond electromagnetics to acoustics, classical and quantum mechanics, biology, and chemistry, and is finding application in medicine, robotics, transportation and infrastructure. His perfect lens and invisibility cloak are excellent examples of devices once thought fantastical, but made realizable through metamaterials and their extreme, often counterintuitive properties. When speaking to general audiences, I excite them with the notion that we may be on the brink of a ‘Metamaterial Age’ akin to the Stone, Iron and Silicon Ages of human history. Sir Pendry has opened the door to a new frontier, and students at UC San Diego and around the world will be its most intrepid explorers. Sir Pendry has secured a legacy desirable by any scientist.”
William Forsythe
Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy
Thursday, March 13, 10-11:30 a.m. PDT
William Forsythe is a choreographer whose work has extended ballet to a dynamic contemporary art form. Forsythe danced with New York’s Joffrey Ballet and later with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany, where he was appointed resident choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and other ballet companies worldwide. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of Ballet Frankfurt. After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble, The Forsythe Company, which he directed from 2005 to 2015. Between 2015 and 2021 he served on the University of Southern California’s faculty, where he helped establish the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Forsythe has broken the boundaries of conventional ballet style, challenging traditional artistic frameworks and developing improvisation techniques. His projects include installations and films presented in numerous museums, as well as dance documentation and education.
“A pioneer of contemporary ballet, William Forsythe burst onto the dance scene in the early 1980s disrupting all that had come before him. Building upon the shoulders of George Balanchine, who changed the genre in the early 20th century from a story/spectacle-focused art form to a celebration of pure, minimalist dance, Forsythe introduced improvisation, chance and an iconoclastic wit to ballet,” said Lisa Portes, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego. “His deep curiosity about the possibilities of the form has resulted not only in dozens of choreographed pieces featured in New York, London, Frankfurt, Paris and across the globe, but in numerous experimental installations both in actual space and online. His dedication to exploration, breaking boundaries and the athleticism of the human body chart a new way of collaborating with dancers and of thinking about dance writ large.”
ABOUT THE KYOTO PRIZE: The is presented each year by Japan’s nonprofit Inamori Foundation to individuals and groups worldwide who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to the betterment of society, in “Advanced Technology,” “Basic Sciences,” and “Arts and Philosophy.” The prize consists of a diploma, a Kyoto Prize medal and prize money of 100 million yen (approximately $650,000) per category, making it Japan’s highest private award for global achievement.
ABOUT THE INAMORI FOUNDATION: The is a nonprofit established in Kyoto, Japan, in 1984 by the late Dr. Kazuo Inamori, whose career included founding Kyocera Corp. and serving as honorary advisor to both KDDI Corp. and Japan Airlines. Inamori created the Kyoto Prize in reflection of his belief that people have no higher calling than to strive for the greater good of humankind and society, and that the future of humanity can be assured only when there is a balance between scientific development and the enrichment of the human spirit.
ABOUT THE KYOTO SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZATION: The is a San Diego-based 501(c)3 nonprofit established to support the Kyoto Prize Symposium and Kyoto Prize Scholarship programs with the Inamori Foundation and co-hosts University of California San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University. Since 2002, the symposium has generated more than $5 million for scholarships, fellowships and other educational opportunities in the San Diego-Baja region.
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