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, and then became the Distinguished Professor. He has been also the Professor of Departments of Frontier Bioscience and Information Sciences. In 2002 he joined RIKEN as a Chief Scientist as a Head of Nanophotonics Laboratory until his retirement in 2012. He has been also a Team Leader of RIKEN till 2015.

Professor Kawata is now the Professor Emeritus of Osaka University and a Honorary Scientist of RIKEN. He has served as the President of JSAP (Japan Society of Applied Physics) from 2014 to 2016, and the President of Spectroscopical Society of Japan fro, 2007 to 2008, an served as number of societies as Directors of Board and Chairs. He is a Fellow of OSA, IOP, SPIE, and JSAP.

Professor Kawata 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 67, 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.