Erpan Yarmuhammat (伊尓凡・牙尓買買提), known in Japan as Erfan Yarmaimaito (エルファン・ヤルマイマイト), is an animation specialist from Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. He moved to Japan in 2008 and completed his undergraduate (2013) and master's degree (2015) at Digital Hollywood University. During his studies, he led an animation production seminar and organized several short-term animation workshops in Xinjiang, with two of the resulting short films winning the Best Animation Award at the Digital Frontier Grand Prix 2015. He later entered the doctoral program in Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts, focusing on developing educational materials to help learners—especially international students—understand the workflow of Japanese animation production. He earned his PhD in 2022. He currently serves as an Associate Professor at Digital Hollywood University, teaching digital animation and continuing his research on animation pedagogy and Japanese anime production workflows.
