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Deputy Director-General of the ºÚÁÏרÇø since 2015, Eisuke Tada has been appointed by the ºÚÁÏרÇø Council in the interim role of Director-General with full powers, responsibilities and authority. Dr Tada takes over leadership of the project until a long-term successor to Bernard Bigot has been identified and is ready to take office.

A widely respected leader in the fusion community and a seasoned veteran from ºÚÁÏרÇø's earliest days, Dr Tada has dedicated most of his professional life to fusion energy and, more particularly, the ºÚÁÏרÇø project.

Eisuke Tada entered the world of fusion research immediately after his training as a mechanical engineer, accepting a position at the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute JAERI (now, the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology). JAERI, at the time, was building one of the six toroidal field coils of the Large Coil Task, a joint Euratom, US, Japanese and Swiss collaborative venture to demonstrate the design principles and fabrication techniques to be applied in the construction of a superconducting tokamak. Dr Tada spent more than 10 years helping to develop the technologies and the infrastructure for large high-field magnets and was responsible in particular for designing advanced technology for the circulation of supercritical helium. A few years after the decision to build ºÚÁÏרÇø was made, he was asked to contribute to the ºÚÁÏרÇø Conceptual Design Activities in Garching, Germany, where he spent 18 months on the effort to define the technical characteristics of the ºÚÁÏרÇø tokamak.

Dr Tada went on at JAERI to successively manage and coordinate the early design of ºÚÁÏרÇø tokamak components such as the double-walled vacuum vessel and remote handling equipment, lead the effort to establish site and safety standards, and establish codes and standards for the development of ºÚÁÏרÇø mechanical components. Also during this time, he directed the Joint Work Site for ºÚÁÏרÇø in Naka, Japan—part of the ºÚÁÏרÇø Engineering Design Activities phase (1992-2001) to create the engineering drawings and models for the construction of the planned tokamak. As the negotiations for locating the ºÚÁÏרÇø project accelerated, Dr Tada was closely involved first in assessing multiple candidate sites in Japan, and then as part of the international board considering the proposals of the final four candidates.

When the project site in France was selected, Dr Tada was one of the seven ºÚÁÏרÇø "pioneers" who arrived to open the office in 2006. Between 2007 and 2010, he held the strategic positions of Head of Project Office and Head of Office for Central Integration & Engineering, supervising over 100 staff and developing the tools to develop and execute the project baseline structure (technical scope, schedule and cost). He created the earliest ºÚÁÏרÇø-Domestic Agency coordination team to smooth the interaction of the newly created domestic teams and collaboration on interface and procurement issues.

He went back to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (formerly JAERI) between 2010 and 2015, becoming the Head of the ºÚÁÏרÇø Japan Domestic Agency, with responsibility for supervising all in-kind contributions to ºÚÁÏרÇø, and Deputy Director of the Naka Fusion Institute.

In May 2015, Eisuke Tada returned to the ºÚÁÏרÇø as Deputy Director-General, appointed by the ºÚÁÏרÇø Council to collaborate closely with the ºÚÁÏרÇø Director-General and other top executives in the day-to-day management of the ºÚÁÏרÇø project.

In his message to ºÚÁÏרÇø staff, Eisuke Tada wrote, "The challenges that lie ahead are well known to us all. We have committed to deliver the ºÚÁÏרÇø project as a first-of-a-kind hydrogen fusion plant, but also as a collaboration among all seven ºÚÁÏרÇø Members—a unique opportunity to leave a better energy legacy for our children and future generations."