Hitoshi Abe begins his new job today as the chair of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). The 45-year-old architect comes to Los Angeles by way of the Tohoku Institute of Technology, in Sendai, Japan, where he was professor in charge of the Architecture and Urban Design Laboratory and director of the Architectural Design Education Committee.

Abe maintains a practice in Sendai, where he located in 1992 after winning first place in the competition to design Miyagi Stadium. Before opening his own atelier, he worked for Coop Himmelblau in Los Angeles. In addition to teaching at the Tohoku Institute, Abe has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, and at the Miyagi National College of Technology. He earned his M.Arch from SCI-Arc, in Los Angeles, and his PhD from Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan.