My earlier work in Okinawan marine biology and ancient genomes still shapes how I think. Both fields taught me to question what the data can really support.

Marine biology and environmental genomics

From reef organisms to genomic questions

My field work began with real organisms in a changing reef. During a research stay at OIST from 2021 to 2022, I learned coastal environmental DNA sampling and safe field methods. That experience still pushes me to trace every computational result back to its sample and environment.

Sea turtle resting among coral on the reef at Aka Island, Okinawa
Aka Island, Keramashoto National Park. A sea turtle among the reef, from my research and photography archive.

Field to workflow

Environmental context matters

Sampling decisions become analytical assumptions. Following the chain from water collection to sequencing and inference strengthened my interest in traceable workflows, careful validation, and ecological interpretation.

Continuing questions

Adaptation and symbiosis

I continue to study how anemonefish relate to their hosts and how transposable elements respond to ocean acidification. These systems show how genomes meet a changing environment.

Ocean acidification evidence
Entacmaea genomics

Comparative and environmental genomics

Reef systems as natural experiments

My work in coral reef genomics asks how organisms adapt and live in symbiosis as their environment changes. It gives me a wider view of the same core problem: how context changes biology.

Ocellaris clownfish sheltering in a Stichodactyla sea anemone
Anemonefish symbiosisStichodactyla and ocellaris clownfish in a coral reef habitat. Repository
Tomato clownfish sheltering in an Entacmaea sea anemone
Host ecologyTomato clownfish and Entacmaea in situ. Repository
Clownfish living among a purple sea anemone at Aka Island, Okinawa
Aka Island fieldworkAnemonefish habitat in the Kerama Islands, Okinawa.
Clownfish among a large sea anemone at Aka Island, Okinawa
Environmental genomicsField context for questions about adaptation and changing oceans.
See how I keep the research notebook traceable
Shell excerptentacmaea-research

Small helpers create dated research notes and convert older records without committing them automatically.

./scripts/newlog.sh
./scripts/txt2md_git.sh
Read the source in GitHub

Ancient intelligence and population genomics

What ancient genomes can tell us, and where they fall short

My doctoral research asked whether modern genome wide association studies could support comparisons of polygenic scores across ancient and present day populations. The limits are serious. Ancient genomes are incomplete, populations differ, and modern effect estimates do not travel cleanly across ancestry or time.

Journal of Human Genetics · 2022

Inferring intelligence of ancient people

With Naruya Saitou, I described an exploratory genomic framework and the interpretive cautions required when connecting polygenic evidence to complex traits in ancient populations.

Read the paper
View the analysis repository

SOKENDAI · 2024

A doctoral bridge

My thesis brought together intelligence in ancient humans and adaptation in coral reef fish. Both studies asked how much a genomic signal can reveal when biological and historical context is incomplete.

Open the thesis record