Professor Nobuyuki Kaya received his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Kyoto University in 1973, 1975, and 1986, respectively. He is currently the Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University in Japan. Professor Kaya is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering at Kobe University.

From 1986 to 1992, he was a Visiting Associate Professor of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). His areas of research include Space Solar Power, microwave power transmission, and space observation of energetic particles. He has performed numerous space and ground demos; e.g., MINIX, ISY- METS, MILAX and Retrodirective antennas. In January 2006, he and an international team (Japan, ESA) successfully tested microwave beam control for an SPS using an ISAS sounding rocket and 3 daughter satellites deploying a large web: the "Furoshiki" experiment. He played a central role in the demonstration of key solar-powered wireless power transmission, as part of the Oribital Power Plant episode of the Project Earth television series on the Discovery Channel.

He is Vice President of a U.N. NGO, the SUNSAT Energy Council, and is also the chairman for Space Infrastructure (Category C) in the IAF Steering Committee, and was chair of the IAF Power Committee for 6 years.