ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Momoe Nakajo is first author on ‘ Centrosome maturation requires phosphorylation-mediated sequential domain interactions of SPD-5’, published in JCS. Momoe is a PhD student in the lab of Asako Sugimoto at the Laboratory of Developmental Dynamics, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, investigating the mechanisms involved in formation of microtubule-organizing centers.