Satoshi Kawata received his BSc, Msc, and PhD all in Applied Physics in 1974, 76, and 79, respectively, from Osaka University.  After the experience of postdoctral fellow of JSPS, he spent two years in University of California, at Irvine as a Research Associate.  He joined Osaka University as a faculty member in 1981 and was promoted to Professor of Applied Physics in 1993. He joined RIKEN as a Chief Scientist from 2002 to 2012 and as a Team Leader from 2012 to 2015.

Professor Kawata is now the Distinguished Professor of Departments of Applied Physics and Frontier Bioscience at Osaka University, and a Honorary Scientist of RIKEN.  He is currently the President of JSAP (Japan Society of Applied Physics), and has served as General Chair of SPIE Nano Science and Engineering. He is a Fellow of OSA, IOP, SPIE, and JSAP.

He is one of the pioneers in near field optics (the inventor of tip-enhanced near-field microscopy), three-dimensional microscopy (laser  CT microscopy, 3D data storage), plasmoics (SPR sensors, plasmon holography, plasmon laser, plasmonic microscopy), two-photon engineering (two-photon polymerization, two-photon isomerization, two-photon photorefraction, two-photon SPP, etc), bio-imaging, and signal recovery.

He has authored/edited more than 30 books and published more than 400 papers with h-index 63, and was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan, Japan IBM Science Award, LVMH da Vinci Excellence, Shimadzu Award, and many others. The "8-micron bull" fabricated with his invented two-photon technology has been awarded in Guinness World Record Book 2004 Edition.