Obituary of Yoshinao Nakada

Yoshinao Nakada, known as Yoshi, passed away peacefully in New Jersey at the age of 90 on December 5, 2024, of natural causes.

Yoshi was born in Osaka and grew up in Tokyo. He was the grandson of Kinkichi Nakada, the fourth CEO of the Sumitomo conglomerate, and the great-grandson of Tarozo Nakada, a samurai from the Akita Domain. At the age of 16, Yoshi moved to the United States alone, embarking on a journey with only $20 in his pocket after World War II. He had won a scholarship to study at Lawrence Academy. He later went on to earn an A.B., M.S., and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University.

Yoshi spent most of his career at Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he contributed significantly to the field of engineering. Notably, he helped establish the Bell Labs Tokyo branch in the 1990s.

Though he was a skilled engineer, Yoshi had a deep passion for the humanities. He loved poetry and often shared how Shakespeare and William Blake had profoundly enriched his life. Philosophy was another passion, and his favorite undergraduate course at Harvard was Hum 4: The Problems of Good and Evil, taught by Professor Phillip Rhinelander. Yoshi also had a great sense of humor and delighted in making people laugh, often through elaborate April Fools' pranks involving creative costumes.

In a letter to his family, to be opened after his death, Yoshi wrote: “A loving wife, three loving and successful children, eight grandchildren. What more can one ask? My life was happy and full.”

Yoshi is survived by his beloved wife, Anna Nakada; his children, Marian (Chris Reyna), and their children Siva and Nicole; Peter (Ellis Wood), and their children Akira, Stella, and Johji; Paul (Christine Hoang), and their children Maddy, Yoshi, and Yuzu; and his sister, Toyoko Koseki.