Masashi Hasegawa is Professor of Department of Materials Physics, former Vice-Dean of Graduate School of Engineering at Nagoya University, and a former member of the Nagoya University Council. He initiated and currently directs the Research Center for Crystalline Materials Engineering. Masashi received his PhD from Nagoya University and has been working in Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, Pennsylvania State University and Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University before joining Nagoya University. Masashi is former President of the Japan society of High Pressure Science and Technology and a member of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Association for Crystal Growth. His research covers synthesis, crystal chemistry and solid state physics of various kinds of inorganic materials such as metal oxides, metal nitrides, metal hydrides, intermetallics, metallic glasses, quasicrystals and so on. His current research interests mainly focus on high pressure crystal chemistry, electronic structure and solid state physics of non-oxide inorganic materials such as nitrides, silicides and germanides, phosphides, intermetallics. Particularly, Masashi and his co-workers have developed unique techniques to synthesize transition-metal nitrides under high pressures, and not only discovered many novel transition-metal nitrides but also clarified their stability, crystal structure, electronic structure and physical properties. Recently, they have also made notable achievements in the discovery of novel metal-metalloid compounds by high-pressure synthesis, including the discovery of room-temperature ferromagnets in the Cr-Ge compounds.