Hiroyuki Niiro is a Professor in the Department of Information Engineering at Ibaraki University's College of Engineering, where he has served since joining as an Assistant in 1993, becoming Lecturer in 1997, Assistant Professor in 2001, and Professor in 2015. Born in Nagasaki in August 1961, he graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Information Science in 1985 and earned his Doctorate in Engineering from the same institution in 1997. His research focuses on Natural Language Processing using machine learning and statistics , with additional interests in image and voice pattern recognition and data mining. His work has evolved from traditional NLP techniques to contemporary transformer-based approaches, particularly specializing in Japanese language processing, word sense disambiguation, and domain adaptation methods. Niiro's recent publications (2021-2025) demonstrate his shift toward large language models, with research spanning BERT adaptations, data augmentation techniques, multimodal learning, and Japanese-specific NLP challenges. His work shows a consistent trajectory from foundational NLP research to current state-of-the-art language modeling approaches. He currently supervises graduate students including Yang Lei (D2) and Yu Onodera (M2) in his laboratory. Niiro has authored numerous books including Fine-tuning of LLM and RAG (2024), Introduction to Natural Language Processing Starting with Document Classification (2022), and multiple deep learning programming guides. His laboratory maintains active research in natural language processing, with members participating in major conferences including the Annual Conference of the Association for Natural Language Processing. Niiro has also contributed to educational resources including statistical examination preparation materials and RSS technology introductions.
