Shigeo was one of the organizers of the Kwansei Gakuin University Relief Volunteer Center that managed about 7,500 student volunteers after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. From 1997 to 2005, he was an active member of Hyogo Forum for Advocating Individual Recovery. For his recovery advocacy work, Shigeo was awarded the Governor's Award for distinguished service in 2005.
From the late 1990’s, Shigeo became active in disaster research thanks to the mentoring of such brilliant disaster scholars as Haruo Hayashi, Kathleen Tierney, Joan Nigg and Bill Anderson through the US/Japan collaborative research initiatives that started from the mid 1980’s.
His current fields of interests include long-term life (individual) recovery (e.g., the1999-01-03-05 Hyogo Life Recovery Surveys and the 2014-15-16-17 Natori Life Recovery Population Panel Surveys), disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction (e.g., field studies of 2001 Geiyo Earthquake, 2004 Niigata-Fukushima floods, 2004 Typhoon 23 floods in Northern Hyogo, 2004 Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake, 2007 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, and 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake), post-disaster management of emergent multi-organizational networks (EMONs) (e.g., field studies of 1995 Kobe earthquake, 1997 Japan Sea oil spill, and 2011 GEJE), and impacts of social capital enrichment upon social safety, security and livability (e.g., 2007-08-09-10-13 Kobe and 2014-17 Kyoto surveys).
On July 18, 2018, Shigeo was awarded the International Sociological Association Reserach Committee 39 (Sociology of Disaster) Charles E. Fritz Award for Career Achievements in the Social Science Disaster Area.
