On behalf of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR), it is my great honor and pleasure to present the 2021 JDR Award to Prof. and Dr. Suminao Murakami, or “Murakami Sensei.” Murakami Sensei has served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of the JDR for the past 16 years, since 2006. The JDR has now published more than 100 issues, becoming recognized as the leading Japan-based, international online peer-review journal on disaster risk reduction for all hazards except war, and Murakami Sensei has always been its greatest contributor. The Editorial Board reluctantly respected Murakami Sensei’s decision to resign from the position of Editor-in-Chief, but it has unanimously agreed to rename the JDR Award to the MURAKAMI Suminao Award for Disaster Research from 2022 on. The Journal of Disaster Research will continue its best efforts “to reduce the horrors of disaster through information,” as Murakami Sensei and Takiguchi Sensei wrote in the Message from the Editors-in-Chief in the first issue of the JDR.