I am a postdoctoral researcher at Kyoto University (Japan), working with Yasu Hiraoka. I received my Ph.D. in Mathematics from Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) in 2019 as a member of the Berlin Mathematical School, under the supervision of Bernold Fiedler. Afterward, I spent 3.5 years in industry at Tenaris (Japan and U.S. offices). Since May 2023, I have returned to academia.
Research
I am interested in the macroscopic pattern formation that appears in natural phenomena, especially biological phenomena, and the mathematical structure behind them. Using mathematical models and data science, I investigate what principles, hopefully something easy to understand and describe, govern seemingly complex phenomena. By understanding the mathematical structure behind a phenomenon, I wish to have control of the phenomenon or confront real-world problems related to that phenomenon. Currently, I am working on the clarification of properties unique to species such as humans and monkeys through transcriptome (more generally, omics or multiomics) data analysis using optimal transport theory, as well as those shared across species, and analysis and comparison of gene regulatory networks of various species. I wish to discover the mathematical structure hidden behind the vast amounts of data and clarify the similarities and differences in the gene functions and epigenomes of humans and non-human primates. I believe that the process of working on problems in applied mathematics can broaden the scope of application of the underlying mathematical theory or lead to the development of a new theory, and I would like to conduct research with both fields of study in mind. I’m open to interdisciplinary collaborative research with researchers from various fields, wishing to learn new things and expanding my expertise.
Publications
2025
- Yuya Tokuta, Tomonori Nakamura, Kohei Fujiwara, Masanori Imamura, Masahiro Nagano, Mitinori Saitou, Yusuke Imoto, and Yasuaki Hiraoka. "Geometric inference of cross-species transcriptome correspondence using Gromov-Wasserstein optimal transport," bioRxiv (preprint). DOI: 10.1101/2025.10.23.684069
2019
- Yuya Tokuta. "Negative Phototaxis of Euglena gracilis and Resulting Bioconvection Patterns under Stationary or Rapidly Periodic Illumination," Doctoral dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin. DOI: 10.17169/refubium-28134
2017
- Yuya Tokuta. "Bioconvection Generated by Euglena gracilis under Stationary Illumination from the Bottom," Master's thesis, Freie Universität Berlin.
Teaching
- Oct 2025 – Mar 2026, Engineering Mathematics (工業数学), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Apr 2025 – Sep 2025, Integrated Liberal Arts and Science with Small Group Seminars: Life and Biological Phenomena through Mathematics (統合科学・少人数演習付：数学で見る生命現象), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Oct 2024 – Mar 2025, Engineering Mathematics (工業数学), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Contact
Name
Yuya Moses Tokuta (德田 有矢)
Affiliation
Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi), Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS), Kyoto University
Address
Yoshida-konoe-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan