Noriko H. Arai

The native form of this personal name is Arai Noriko. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Noriko H. Arai
新井紀子
Born1962 (age 63–64)
Tokyo, Japan
EducationHitotsubashi University (Law) University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (B.S. in Mathematics, magna cum laude) Tokyo Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Known forTodai Robot Project, Researchmap
Notable workProject to develop AI capable of passing University of Tokyo entrance exams
Scientific career
FieldsMathematical logic, Artificial intelligence
InstitutionsNational Institute of Informatics

Noriko H. Arai (Japanese: 新井紀子, romanized: Arai Noriko, born 1962[1]) is a Japanese researcher in mathematical logic and artificial intelligence,[2] known for her work on a project to develop robots that can pass the entrance examinations for the University of Tokyo.[3] She is a professor in the information and society research division of the National Institute of Informatics.[3][4]

Early life and education

Professor Noriko H. Arai was born in Tokyo.[5] During her time at Tokyo Metropolitan Kunitachi High School, her strongest subject in high school was Japanese language arts which led her to pursue a liberal arts degree for her undergraduate studies at Hitotsubashi University. [6][7] She received a bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Law; this type of degree is different from a J.D. and instead emphasizes sending human resources into society.[8] At Hitotsubashi University, math was a required subject which led to Arai’s interest in understanding the process behind the math itself. With this renewed desire, she took the SAT and TOEFL exams to study abroad at the University of Illinois in the Department of Mathematics.[6] She graduated magna cum laude from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois in her first year in 1985. Arai then received a scholarship to enter the five-year doctoral program in mathematics at the University of Illinois Graduate School, but she instead completed her master's degree in 1990.[9] While at the University of Illinois, she married mathematician Toshiyasu Arai. She returned to Tokyo in 1990. At the time, she was 7 months pregnant. With the University’s support she was able to still finish her degree.[6] After giving birth to her first daughter, she completed her Bachelor of Law from Hitotsubashi University in March of 1995. She became an assistant professor in the Faculty of Information Science at Hiroshima University, where her husband worked.[10] Afterwards, she received her Doctor in Science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in March of 1997.[11] Her dissertation was: "On Lengths of Proofs in Propositional Calculi."[12] She joined the National Institute of Informatics as a professor in 2001.[4]

Contributions

Arai's recent research has focussed on the intersection between Artificial Intelligence and education. Alongside several co-authors, Arai contributed as the last author to a 2018 paper called "Can an A.I. win a medal in the mathematical olympiad? – Benchmarking mechanized mathematics on pre-university problems" published in AI Communications, in which her team created a "problem library [...] designed to support the integration of the technologies of mechanized mathematics and natural language processing towards the goal of end-to-end automatic mathematical problem solving".[13] This paper acts as an extension to Matsuzaki et al. (2017), "Semantic parsing of pre-university math problems" for which Arai and her team developed an "end-to-end math problem solving system that accepts natural language input."[14] Beyond mathematical education, Arai has also contributed to research on reading and language skills, developing a Reading Skill Tests to compare AI and human reading comprehension skills.[15] The Reading Skill Test was developed in collaboration with the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, and the test was administered to over 40,000 students.[16] Her early publications examine mathematical proof systems, particularly within the fields of calculus and combinatorics.[17] [18]

In 2011, the National Institute of Informatics launched "The Todai Robot Project (Can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?", an Artificial Intelligence initiative aimed at creating a robot capable of answering real questions from the University of Tokyo entrance examinations.[19] Arai became director of the project in 2011.[2] The examination includes eight subject tests, including two social studies, two sciences, Japanese and Chinese classics, English, and two mathematics.[20] Over 500 thousand high school graduates participate in standardized admissions exams each year in Japan, yet fewer than fifteen thousand students are permitted to advance to the selective University of Tokyo test.[21] In 2015, Arai published her paper: "The impact of AI: can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?", which announced her team's Todai Robot achieved a score above the median human test taker, yet below the average score of those admitted to the University of Tokyo.[22] Still, the robot was "competent enough to pass the entrance exams of 472 out of 581 private universities in Japan".[23] The Todai robot received international attention, and was the subject of Professor Arai's 2017 TEDTalk. [24] Arai sees the success of the project as evidence that human education should concentrate more on problem solving and creativity, and less on rote learning.[25] Arai won multiple awards for her work related to the Todai Robot Project, including the Association for Natural Language Processing's 30th Anniversary Paper Award in 2024.[26]

Arai is also an award-winning author. Her book, AI vs. Children Who Can't Read Textbooks, grapples with the problems with the education system in Japan and discusses the future of AI.[27] The book won the Okawa Publishing Award in 2018,[28] a TOPPOINT Award for the First Half of 2018,[29] the 66th Japan Essayist Club Award,[30] the 2019 Business Book Award,[27] and others.

Arai is the founder of Researchmap, "the largest social network for researchers in Japan".[31] She was one of 15 top artificial intelligence researchers invited by French president Emmanuel Macron to join him in March 2018 for the announcement of a major new French initiative for artificial intelligence research.[32]

Selected publications

  • Noriko Arai's Reading Comprehension Training, published by Toyo Keizai, 2025.[33]
  • Shin Reading Comprehension, published by Toyo Keizai, 2025.[34]
  • Detour Pan! Introduction to Mathematics for Survival (New and Expanded Edition), published by Shinyosha, 2021.[35]
  • Raising children who can compete with AI, published by Toyo Keizai, 2018.[36]
  • AI vs. Children Who Can't Read Textbooks, published by Toyo Keizai, 2018.[37]
  • Detour Pan! Can a Cellobot get into Tokyo University? Published by East Press, 2014.[38]

Selected awards

  • 2024: Association for Natural Language Processing's 30th Anniversary Paper Award[26]
  • 2022: Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award for Science and Technology (Science and Technology Promotion Division).[39]
  • 2022: 4th Japan Treasure Summit Academic Award[40]
  • 2019: Business Book Awards Grand Prize[41]
  • 2018: Ishibashi Tanzan Award[42]
  • 2018: Okawa Publishing Award[28]
  • 2018: Avon Woman of the Year Award in Education[43]
  • 2018: Japan Human Resources Department HR Awards Book Category Excellence Award[44]
  • 2018: PHP Institute's 27th Yamamoto Shichihei Award[45]
  • 2018: 66th Japan Essayist Club Award[30]
  • 2018: TOPPOINT Award[29]
  • 2016: Outstanding Paper Award, Natural Language Processing Association[46]
  • 2015: Trivia Publishing Award[47]
  • 2010: The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Prizes for Science and Technology, the Commendation for Science and Technology.[48]
  • 2009: NISTEP Award from National Institute of Science and Technology Policy[48]

References

  1. ^ Birth year from Library of Congress Name Authority File, accessed 2018-10-19
  2. ^ a b "Speaker profile: Noriko H. Arai, Professor, National Institute of Informatics", 20th International Conference for Women in Business, retrieved 2018-10-19
  3. ^ a b Tsujimura, Tatsuya (March 4, 2014), "Robots challenged to pass Todai examination", Japan Times
  4. ^ a b "ARAI Noriko", Faculty: Information and Society Research Division, National Institute of Informatics, retrieved 2018-10-19
  5. ^ "The 20th International Conference for Women in Business : Game Changer ewoman, Inc". The 20th International Conference for Women in Business : Game Changer ewoman, Inc. (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  6. ^ a b c "【Global Leader Interview】Dr. Noriko Arai: AI Researcher and Professor at National Institute of Informatics". Y-SAPIX Global Campus (in Japanese). 2024-02-09. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  7. ^ "朝日新聞デジタル：国立高校長に聞く - 東京 - 地域". www.asahi.com (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  8. ^ "About the Faculty of Law – Hitotsubashi University | Hitotsubashi University Faculty of Law" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  9. ^ "新井紀子教授の言うことは信頼できるのか？『AI vs. 教科書が読めない子どもたち』 - 学校の勉強しかできないあなたへ". 学校の勉強しかできないあなたへ (in Japanese). 2018-02-20. Archived from the original on 2018-03-09. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  10. ^ Hitotsubashi University. "個性は主張する" (PDF). www.hit-u.ac.jp. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-01-12. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  11. ^ "Noriko Arai - My portal - researchmap". researchmap.jp. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  12. ^ "On lengths of proofs in propositional calculi | NDLサーチ | 国立国会図書館". 国立国会図書館サーチ（NDLサーチ） (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  13. ^ Matsuzaki, Takuya; Iwane, Hidenao; Kobayashi, Munehiro; Zhan, Yiyang; Fukasaku, Ryoya; Kudo, Jumma; Anai, Hirokazu; Arai, Noriko H. (2018-05-17). Fontaine, Pascal; Kaliszyk, Cezary; Schulz, Stephan; Urban, Josef (eds.). "Can an A.I. win a medal in the mathematical olympiad? – Benchmarking mechanized mathematics on pre-university problems1". AI Communications. 31 (3): 251–266. doi:10.3233/AIC-180762.
  14. ^ Matsuzaki, Takuya; Ito, Takumi; Iwane, Hidenao; Anai, Hirokazu; Arai, Noriko H. (2017-08-04). Barzilay, Regina; Kan, Min-Yen (eds.). "Semantic Parsing of Pre-university Math Problems". Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). Vancouver, Canada: Association for Computational Linguistics: 2131–2141. doi:10.18653/v1/P17-1195.
  15. ^ Arai, Noriko H.; Todo, Naoya; Arai, Teiko; Bunji, Kyosuke; Sugawara, Shingo; Inuzuka, Miwa; Matsuzaki, Takuya; Ozaki, Koken (2017). "Reading Skill Test to Diagnose Basic Language Skills in Comparison to Machines" (PDF). Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2017): Computational Foundations of Cognition. Cognitive Science Society. pp. 1556–1561.
  16. ^ "A Warning About Japan's Future? AI Outperforms Students at Reading". nippon.com. 2018-04-05. Retrieved 2026-02-25.
  17. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2000-07-15). "Relative efficiency of propositional proof systems: resolution vs. cut-free LK". Annals of Pure and Applied Logic. 104 (1): 3–16. doi:10.1016/S0168-0072(00)00005-1. ISSN 0168-0072.
  18. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2000-05-06). "No feasible monotone interpolation for simple combinatorial reasoning". Theoretical Computer Science. 238 (1): 477–482. doi:10.1016/S0304-3975(99)00142-5. ISSN 0304-3975.
  19. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2015-06-01). "The impact of AI—can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?". National Science Review. 2 (2): 135–136. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwv011. ISSN 2053-714X.
  20. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2015-06-01). "The impact of AI—can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?". National Science Review. 2 (2): 135–136. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwv011. ISSN 2053-714X.
  21. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2015-06-01). "The impact of AI—can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?". National Science Review. 2 (2): 135–136. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwv011. ISSN 2053-714X.
  22. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2015-06-01). "The impact of AI—can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?". National Science Review. 2 (2): 135–136. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwv011. ISSN 2053-714X.
  23. ^ Arai, Noriko H. (2015-06-01). "The impact of AI—can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?". National Science Review. 2 (2): 135–136. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwv011. ISSN 2053-714X.
  24. ^ Arai, Noriko (2017-08-30). Can a robot pass a university entrance exam?. Retrieved 2026-02-25 – via www.ted.com.
  25. ^ Wakefield, Jane (April 26, 2017), Ted 2017: The robot that wants to go to university, BBC News
  26. ^ a b 国立情報学研究所 (2024-12-05). "新井 紀子教授（情報社会相関研究系）らの論文が一般社団法人言語処理学会の言語処理学会30周年記念論文賞を受賞". 国立情報学研究所 / National Institute of Informatics (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  27. ^ a b "Artificial Intelligence vs. Children Who Can't Read Textbooks". 東洋経済STORE. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  28. ^ a b "公益財団法人　大川情報通信基金：［顕彰・助成事業］ 大川出版賞 ： 大川出版賞受賞図書". www.okawa-foundation.or.jp. Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  29. ^ a b TOPPOINT（トップポイント）. "2018年上半期 TOPPOINT大賞 | 新刊ビジネス書の要約『TOPPOINT（トップポイント）』". TOPPOINT（トップポイント） - 新刊ビジネス書の要約 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  30. ^ a b 国立情報学研究所 (2018-06-25). "新井 紀子教授（情報社会相関研究系）の著書「AI vs. 教科書が読めない子どもたち」が第66回の日本エッセイスト・クラブ賞を受賞". 国立情報学研究所 / National Institute of Informatics (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  31. ^ "Noriko Arai", GS10 Speakers, Gender Summit Asia-Pacific 10, 2017, retrieved 2018-10-19
  32. ^ France's Macron announces 1.5-bln-euro investment in artificial intelligence, Xinhua, March 30, 2018, archived from the original on March 29, 2018
  33. ^ "新井紀子の読解力トレーニング". 東京書籍 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  34. ^ "シン読解力". 東洋経済STORE (in Japanese). 2025-02-11. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  35. ^ "よりみちパン！セ 生き抜くための数学入門 （増補新版）". 紀伊國屋書店ウェブストア｜オンライン書店｜本、雑誌の通販、電子書籍ストア (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  36. ^ "AIに負けない子どもを育てる". 東洋経済STORE (in Japanese). 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  37. ^ "The Okawa Foundation for Information and Telecommunications". www.okawa-foundation.or.jp. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  38. ^ "よりみちパン！セ ロボットは東大に入れるか". 紀伊國屋書店ウェブストア｜オンライン書店｜本、雑誌の通販、電子書籍ストア (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  39. ^ "日本数学会--会員誌「数学通信」--第２７巻第３号目次". www.mathsoc.jp. Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  40. ^ 国立情報学研究所 (2022-05-24). "新井 紀子教授（情報社会相関研究系）が第4回JTS学術賞を受賞". 国立情報学研究所 / National Institute of Informatics (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  41. ^ "【ビジネス書大賞2019】『AI vs. 教科書が読めない子どもたち』（新井紀子著 東洋経済新報社）が大賞に決定！". プレスリリース・ニュースリリース配信シェアNo.1｜PR TIMES (in Japanese). 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  42. ^ "第39回 - 石橋湛山". ishibashi-mf.org (in Japanese). 2021-12-18. Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  43. ^ 国立情報学研究所 (2019-01-31). "新井 紀子教授（情報社会相関研究系）が2018年度のエイボン女性年度賞 教育賞を受賞". 国立情報学研究所 / National Institute of Informatics (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  44. ^ 国立情報学研究所 (2018-11-13). "新井 紀子教授（情報社会相関研究系）の著書「AI vs. 教科書が読めない子どもたち」が日本の人事部 HRアワード 書籍部門 優秀賞を受賞". 国立情報学研究所 / National Institute of Informatics (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  45. ^ "第27回山本七平賞は新井紀子著『ＡＩ vs. 教科書が読めない子どもたち』 | PHP研究所". PHP研究所 / PHP INTERFACE (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-01.
  46. ^ "言語処理学会". 言語処理学会 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  47. ^ "雑学出版賞受賞者一覧". www.book-navi.com. Retrieved 2026-03-02.
  48. ^ a b "IEEE GCCE 2014". www.ieee-gcce.org. Retrieved 2026-03-02.

Further reading

  1. ResearchMap profile
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.