Kazuhiro Hono received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in materials science from Tohoku University in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in metals science and engineering from Penn State in 1988. After working as a postdoctoral associate at Carnegie Mellon University, he became a research associate at the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, in 1990. He moved to the National Research Institute for Metals (currently National Institute for Materials Science, NIMS) as a senior researcher in 1995, and is now a NIMS Fellow and the director of the Magnetic Materials Unit. He is also a professor in Materials Science and Engineering at the Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba. His current research interest is materials science in magnetic and spintronics materials and their devices. He is also active in the development of high performance permanent magnets without critical elements.