Hiroshi Ishiwara was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, in 1945. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1968, 1970, and 1973, respectively.

He was with the Tokyo Institute of Technology, as Research Associate of Faculty of Engineering from 1973 to 1976, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering from 1976 to 1989, Professor of Precision and Intelligence Laboratory from 1989 to 1998, and Professor of Frontier Collaborative Research Center from 1988 to 2004. Since April 2004, he has been the Dean of professor at Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of device and process technologies in integrated circuits, and at present he is particularly concerned with ferroelectric memories.

Dr. Ishiwara was awarded the Japan IBM Science Prize in 1990, the Inoue Prize for Science in 1994, the Ichimura Prizes in Technology - Meritorious Achievement Prize in 1994, International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics 2000 Honors in 2000, and the Purple ribbon medal by Japanese government in 2003. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, as well as a member of the Materials Research Society, the Electrochemical Society, the Japan Society of Applied Physics, and the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.