As of October 1, 2025, Prof. Masaki Yamashita has joined the Cosmic-ray Research Division of the Institute for Space–Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Nagoya University.

Prior to this appointment, he conducted research primarily on astroparticle experiments using underground laboratories, focusing on dark matter and neutrinos, at the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR) and the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), the University of Tokyo.

He is currently participating in the international collaborative experiment XENON, conducted in an underground laboratory located 1,400 meters beneath the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. This experiment utilizes liquid xenon to perform one of the world’s most sensitive dark matter searches and covers a wide range of physics topics including axion searches and solar neutrino studies.

He is also involved in the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment, a next-generation large-scale water Cherenkov detector located in Kamioka, Gifu Prefecture. Through collaboration with researchers both in Japan and abroad, he looks forward to contributing to the research activities at Nagoya University.