Yayoi Takamura received the B.S. degree from Cornell University in 1998 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 2000 and 2004, all in the field of Materials Science and Engineering. She was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Berkeley, with Prof. Yuri Suzuki in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering before joining the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at University of California, Davis, in July 2006. Since July 2020, she has been serving as Department Chair. Her research focuses on the growth of complex oxide thin films, heterostructures, and nanostructures and the characterization of the novel functional properties associated with their interfaces.

Prof. Takamura is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, and a 2020 University of California, Davis, College of Engineering Mid-Career Research Award.

Prof. Takamura is a Senior Member of the IEEE. She was the General Chair of the 2022 Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM) Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Program Co-Chair of the 2017 MMM Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Member-at-Large of the American Physical Society’s Topical Group on Magnetism and Its Applications (GMAG). She served as Membership Chair of the IEEE Magnetics Society and is Associate Chair for Conference Finances of its Conference Executive Committee. She is an editor for the Journal of Alloys and Compounds and is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Applied Physics.