Director of Research Center for Regional Disaster Damage Prevention, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan.

Hirokazu Maekawa was born in Hyogo. He received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo. He has served as a professor at Osaka Prefecture University until 2018 and now is an emeritus professor. For four years from January 2009, he was the editor-in-chief of Island Arc (Wiley-Blackwell) and served as an editorial board member until 2019. His specialty is metamorphic petrology. He has studied high-P/T metamorphic rocks mainly in the active subduction zone beneath the Mariana forearc, the Kamuikotan Belt in Hokkaido, and the Sanbagawa Belt in the Kii Peninsula and Shikoku. His professional memberships include the American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of Japan, and Japan Association of Mineralogical Sciences.