Hidenori Takagi, born 1961 in Tokyo, is a Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, and a Professor of Physics at the University of Tokyo. He studied Applied Physics at the University of Tokyo, where he received his PhD in 1989. After joining AT&T Bell Laboratories as a Post-Doctoral member of technical staff in 1990, he returned to the University of Tokyo, becoming an Associate Professor in 1994 and a Professor in 1999. In 2002, he was jointly appointed at RIKEN, Japan as a Chief Scientist and Group Director. In 2013, he became a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. His research interests include the metal-insulator transition, superconductivity, and quantum magnetism in correlated transition metal oxides. He received the IBM science prize (1988), Nissan science prize (1994), K. H. Onnes prize (2006), Honda Frontier Award (2009), and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2013 he was appointed Alexander von Humboldt Professor.