15 Facts About Tomoko Ohta

Tomoko Ohta is a Japanese scientist and Professor Emeritus of the National Institute of Genetics.

Tomoko Ohta has received many awards, including Japan's Order of Culture.

Tomoko Ohta was born near Nagoya and grew up in Miyoshi-cho in Aichi Prefecture.

Tomoko Ohta was in the 6th grade in elementary school when World War II ended.

Tomoko Ohta attended junior high school in Toyota, and became interested in mathematics and physics.

Tomoko Ohta graduated from the Agriculture Department of the University of Tokyo in 1956.

Tomoko Ohta worked with her advisor, Ken-Ichi Kojima, on problems in stochastic population genetics, Ohta completed her PhD in 1966.

Tomoko Ohta was later promoted to a research position at the National Institute of Genetics where she remained from 1969 to 1996.

Tomoko Ohta became Head of the Department of Population Genetics at NIG in 1988, and served as the Vice-Director of the National Institute of Genetics from 1989 to 1991.

Tomoko Ohta served as Vice-President of the Society for the Study of Evolution in 1994.

Tomoko Ohta theorized that neutral mutations still played an important role in evolution.

Tomoko Ohta first developed the slightly deleterious model of molecular evolution, and then a more general form, the nearly neutral theory of evolution.

Tomoko Ohta's theory challenged the position of her mentor Kimura, but they were able to debate fiercely and still maintain both their friendship and their independent positions.

Tomoko Ohta showed that population size is important in determining whether less-than-optimal variants can spread; in a smaller population, chance will have a greater effect on the set of outcomes, and natural selection will function more poorly.

When Tomoko Ohta first published her Nearly Neutral theory, she faced difficulty in attracting the scientific research community's attention and acceptance.