Prof Dr. Kumiko Aoki

Dr. Kumiko Aoki is the Professor of Informatics at the Open University of Japan (OUJ). Since receiving her Ph.D. in Communication and Information Sciences（CIS）from the University of Hawaii, she was Assistant Professor of Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology (1995-1998) and Assistant Professor of Communication at Boston University (1998-2003).
After her return to her home country, Japan, in January 2004, she was a faculty member of the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) in Chiba, Japan, where she specialized in research on the use of ICT in higher education. She was also a faculty member of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) until NIME was integrated into the Open University of Japan (OUJ) in April 2009.

She has been passionate about making teaching and learning open and flexible with the use of ICT and teaches digital media, social informatics, and e-learning. She has also been the instigator in promoting asynchronous and synchronous online education at OUJ. Her recent research interest is the effective use of AI in lifelong and life-wide learning.