Dr Takashi Taniguchi is Fellow of the National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba (Japan). He received his PhD from Tokyo Institute of Technology. His current research activity concerns materials science under high pressure and high temperature, especially studies of diamond and boron nitride crystals as superhard and wideband gap materials. He is a former President of the Japanese Society of High Pressure Science and Technology. He was elected member of the AIRAPT ExC in 2015. E-mail: taniguchi.takashi@nims.go.jp