Dr. Terence Sanger (Provost Professor, University of Southern)
Dr. Terence Sanger is the director of the USC Pediatric Movement Disorders Center. His research focuses on understanding the origins of pediatric movement disorders from both a biological and a computational perspective. The primary goal of his research is to discover new methods for treating children with movement disorders. Dr. Sanger coordinates the Childhood Motor Study Group (CMSG) and the NIH Taskforce on Childhood Movement Disorders, and he is principal investigator on several research studies at USC. He runs the pediatric movement disorders clinic at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) in the department of Neurology.
Dr. Jun Tani (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST))
Jun Tani received the D.Eng. degree from Sophia University, Tokyo in 1995. He started his research career with Sony Computer Science Lab. in 1993. He became a Team Leader of the Laboratory for Behavior and Dynamic Cognition, RIKEN Brain Science Institute in 2001. He became a Full Professor with the Electrical Engineering Department, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea in 2012. He is currently a Full Professor with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan. His current research interests include cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, phenomenology, complex adaptive systems, and robotics. He is an author of “Exploring Robotic Minds: Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena.” published from Oxford Univ. Press in 2016.
Dr. Katsu Yamane(Honda Research Institute USA)
Katsu Yamane is a Senior Scientist at Honda Research Institute USA. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering in 1997, 1999, and 2002 respectively from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Prior to joining Honda in 2018, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Disney Research, an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, and a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Yamane is a recipient of King-Sun Fu Best Transactions Paper Award and Early Academic Career Award from IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and Young Scientist Award from Ministry of Education, Japan. His research interests include physical human-robot interaction, humanoid robot control and motion synthesis, and human motion simulation
Dr. Erhan Oztop (Ozyegin University, Istanbul / Osaka University)
Erhan Oztop earned his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in 2002. In the same year, he joined the Computational Neuroscience Laboratories at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, (ATR) in Japan. There he worked as a researcher and later a senior research and group leader where he also served as vice department head for two research groups. Currently, he is a professor at the Computer Science Department of Ozyegin University, Istanbul, and also a specially appointed professor at Osaka University. His research involves computational study of intelligent behavior, human-in-the loop systems, computational neuroscience, machine learning, cognitive and developmental robotics
Dr. Jun Morimoto (Head of Department of Brain Robot Interface, ATR)
Jun Morimoto is head of department of Brain Robot Interface in ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories. He received his Ph.D. in information science from Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Nara, Japan, in 2001. He was a Research Assistant with the Kawato Dynamic Brain Project, ERATO, JST, from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2002, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. He Jointed ATR in 2002. He also joined JST, ICORP from 2004 to 2009.
Dr. Mitsuo Kawato (ATR)
Mitsuo Kawato received a B.S. degree in physics from Tokyo University in 1976 and M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysical engineering from Osaka University in 1981. From 1981 to 1988, he was a faculty member and lecturer at Osaka University. From 1988, he was a senior researcher and then a supervisor in ATR. Since 2003, he has been Director of ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories. Since 2004, he has been an ATR Fellow. In 2010, he became Director of ATR Brain Information Communication Research Laboratories. In 2018, he was jointly appointed as a Special Advisor, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP).
