Dr. Yoshihisa Shirayama, born in 1955 in Tokyo, Japan, obtained D. Sc. Degree from Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo (UT), in 1982. He then served Assistant and Associate Professor at Ocean Research Institute, UT. In 1997, he became a professor of Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University. In 2003, the laboratory moved to Field Science Education and Research Center.
He served as Director of the center from 2007. After that, he has worked as the Executive Director of Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) for seven years starting in April 2011, and has served as both the Associate Executive Director and the Director, Global Oceanographic Data Center (GODAC) of JAMSTEC from April 2018. His major research field is marine biology, especially taxonomy and ecology of deep-sea meiobenthos. He also is working on the marine biodiversity and the impact of ocean acidification upon it. He was awarded "Oceanic State Promotion Contributors Award”, one of the Prime Minister’s Award in Japan, in August 2018.