Yusuke Yokoyama is a Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo. He is also appointed at the School of Science (Department of Earth and Planetary Science) as well as at Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences (Graduate Program on Environmental Sciences).
He received his PhD from The Australian National University (2000), where he conducted his study at the Research School of Earth Sciences. He then moved to the Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley as a Postdoctoral Chemist, and then was appointed as a Research Scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Department of Energy, USA, before returning to Japan in late 2002.
He was a lecturer at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science until 2008 and then moved to the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, where he was an associate professor before becoming a full professor. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Research School of Physics, The Australian National University.
His research interest is to study past climate and environments to better understand physics and interactions of Earth's various components such as cryosphere, ocean, atmosphere as well as biosphere. He is a strong advocate of an interdisciplinary approach to study Earth Surface Systems. His team has been also actively conducted ecological studies on marine and freshwater biology including salmon, squids, whales, sharks, bivalves, kelps, corals etc. using novel isotopes. Understanding history of geohazards also one of the main topics that his team are working on.