Masahiro Irie received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Kyoto University and his Ph.D. degree in radiation chemistry from Osaka University. He started his research on photochemistry at Hokkaido University in 1970 and went on to Osaka University. In 1988 he was appointed to Professor at Kyushu University, where he initiated the study of photochromic diarylethene derivatives. He is currently interested in developing single-crystalline photochromism and single-molecule photochemistry using diarylethene derivatives.
