Project Professor Yukie NAGAI of the university’s International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) was awarded the “Women in Robotics Engineering and Science (WiRES)” at IROS 2022 (The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), one of the largest and most influential research conferences in robotics in the world, for her contributions in cognitive developmental robotics and robot learning research. She was invited to give a talk in a special session dedicated to WiRES awardees with four other renowned women researchers on October 25 at IROS.

Professor Nagai has also been named one of the 50 most prominent women in robotics in the world by the journal, Analytics Insight, in June 2020.

Professor Nagai is the project leader of the Basic research project (AI and Society) entitled "AI x Tojisha-Kenkyu: Computational Neuroscience for Systematic Understanding of Cognitive Individuality” at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・IROS Kyoto 2022 HP
https://iros2022.org/
https://iros2022.org/program/iros-35th-anniversary-forum/
・Analytics Insight
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/analytics-insight-names-worlds-50-most-renowned-women-in-robotics/
・Dr. Nagai’s profile page
https://developmental-robotics.jp/en/members/yukie_nagai/

Dr. Nagai becomes one of 35 women to be honored with a 2022 Women in Robotics Engineering and Science Award.

The 6th and 7th Beyond AI Science Café movies uploaded at YouTube was covered as an CLOSE UP article at “topics” page in the "Daigaku Koho- Campus Magazine” (August, 2022, No. 1561), UTokyo.

Japanese Only :
The University of Tokyo "University Press" August 2022, NO.1561 (2022.8.31)
The "Daigaku Koho- Campus Magazine” (August 2022, No. 1561 on August 31, 2022), UTokyo
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/about/public-relations/kouhou.html

Associate Professor Yoshiho IKEUCHI of the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) of the University of Tokyo gave a lecture from the UTokyo New York Office, along with Teruo FUJII, President of the University of Tokyo who joined the event online, and other invited speakers at UTokyo-IIS Seminar “Delivering the Vision – Closing the gap between academic research and society” held in a hybrid format on June 13, 2022, New York time.　

Associate Professor Ikeuchi is the research leader of the basic research project “Understanding human brain through constructing organoid circuit tissues” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

For detail about the seminar, refer to the following URL:
https://www.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/news/3871/

UTokyo-IIS Bulletin Vol.10 covering the event published on September 1, 2022 :
https://issuu.com/utokyo-iis/docs/utokyo-iis_bulletin_vol10_web_220831/6

The Institute for AI and Beyond mourns the loss of Dr. Sadaoki FURUI, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Chief Research Director at National Institute of Informatics (NII), former President and Chair of the Board of Trustees of Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC), and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for AI and Beyond since 2020, who passed away on 31 July 2022.

Dr. Furui was a pioneer and a leader in the field of computerized speech recognition and has made a wide range of contributions throughout his distinguished carrier, not only to academic research and education in information technology related to artificial intelligence but also to society at large. As a result, he received numerous awards and honors such as the Science and Technology Agency's Director-General's Award, Cultural Achievement Award, “Medal with Purple Ribbon”, and the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award to mention a few. He has also shown his dedication to the field by serving on various academic committees and organizations in Japan and abroad including the Acoustical Society of Japan, the IEEE and International Speech Communication Association.

We were extremely grateful for his contribution and generous support to our organization as the institute’s first chair of the International Advisory Board and his effort in the creation of the board itself. With his operational knowledge at an international research university in the US as well as his network of contacts at other top research institutions, research communities and prominent researchers in the field of AI at home and elsewhere, he kept giving sound advice to our management team on the prospects and international strategy of the institute. His timely and thoughtful advices to the researchers of the institute on their research projects have greatly been appreciated, not to mentioned that he was the frequent questioner and a thought-provoking advisor at the research seminars held regularly within the institute.

With the respect and thankfulness for his outstanding accomplishments to artificial intelligence research and education, the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo extends its deepest condolences to his family, his colleagues, and all who cherished their lives by knowing Dr. Furui.

Masami HAGIYA, Ph. D.
Director, Institute for AI and Beyond

A research team including Professor Kenichi OHKI of the Institute for AI and Beyond, the Graduate School of Medicine and the International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) of the University of Tokyo and Assistant Professor Tomonari MURAKAMI also of the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo has successfully elucidated a new mechanism of the brain by which a complex neural network, including interareal connections in the cerebral cortex, is efficiently formed during development. This is the first study investigating comprehensively how interareal connections among cortical and thalamic regions are formed during development.
　
This study is expected to be applied in the future to treatments for diseases such as congenital blindness and to circuit formation algorithms to improve an artificial intelligence.

The research result was published in the online edition of Nature on 3 August 2022 (UK time).

Professor Ohki and Assistant Professor Murakami are Project Leader and Researcher respectively in the Basic Research Project entitled “Development of next generation AI by modeling brain information ” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

The full press release (in Japanese only) in PDF.
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/400193638.pdf

Related link: UTokyo HP
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/press/
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00240.html

Abstract URL (Title: Modular strategy for the development of hierarchical networks in the mouse visual system)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05045-w

The article about "Gendered Innovations" covering Professor Yuko ITATSU's research was published at nikkei online on August 1, 2022.

The URL of the article:
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC0627Q0W2A700C2000000/

The article is available in Japanese only.
Registration is necessary to read the full article online.

Professor Itatsu is the sub-leader of the basic research project "B’AI Global Forum: Research on norms, ethics and praxis for a truly gender equal society and a guarantee of rights for minorities in the AI age (Project leader: Professor Kaori HAYASHI)

A team of researchers including Professor Masahiro TAKADA of the Institute for AI and Beyond, and Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) of the University of Tokyo, led by Postdoctoral Research Associate Yosuke KOBAYASHI at the University of Arizona combined machine learning technique, a neural network method with numerical simulation data by the supercomputer “ATERUI II” at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) to successfully generate theoretical predictions of the power spectrum, and then measure the most fundamental quantities which characterize properties of the universe such as the amount of dark matter.

The emulator developed in this study is expected to be applied to galaxy maps that will be captured by the Prime Focus Spectrograph, under development, led by the Kavli IPMU, to be mounted on NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope, to study dark matter mass and the nature of dark energy, leading to new discoveries beyond the current understanding of the universe.

Details of their study were published in Physical Review D on April 20, 2022

Professor Masahiro TAKADA is the Sub-Leader of the Basic Research Project entitled “New developments in AI through study of evolution of the Milky Way from initial quantum fluctuations to its assembly” at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

Related Links：
・Full press release at Kavli IPMU official website
https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20220721-emulator
・Paper Abstract in Physical Review D
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.083517

Professor Tatsuya HARADA of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology （RCAST）of the University of Tokyo was awarded the Science and Technology Award in the Science and Technology Promotion Category for the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) jointly with Professor Shinichi SATO of National Institute of Informatics (NII) and his research collaborators on April 20, 2022 for the contributions made by the “Medical Big-Data Cloud Platform and its application to AI automated diagnosis research”.

The "Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" is awarded to persons who have made outstanding achievements in research and development, promotion of understanding related to science and technology.

Professor Tatsuya HARADA is the Project Leader of the Basic Research (Advancement of Fundamental AI) project entitled "Automatic Learning of High Accurate Prediction Models from Limited Supervised Data" at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・MEXT Homepage: Selected the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology (Awards for Science and Technology in Research Category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (only in Japanese).
https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/mext_00989.html
・Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo (only in Japanese):
https://www.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/news/release/20220408.html
・National Institute of Informatics (NII) News Release
https://www.nii.ac.jp/news/release/2022/0408.html