Hongyue Xu and Ryo Sasaki gave oral presentations on their accepted papers at CHI 2026, a leading conference in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research.
The presentations were as follows:

• Hongyue Xu
  EyeXRciser: Guiding Eye Exercises without Task Interruption in Virtual Workspaces

• Ryo Sasaki
  Screen-Directed Stretching: Supporting Ergonomic Neck Stretching in XR Workspaces

Assistant Professor Lin Gu participated in the IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (held in London) and presented the latest research findings on AI for Science. This conference is one of the leading international conferences in the field of bioimaging, and many cutting-edge research projects are reported there. In this presentation, he introduced AI technology for drug discovery support utilizing electron microscope data.

The presentation covered the following two topics:

1. Toward Efficient End-to-End VEM Processing Using a Unified Agent on GPUs and NPUs
   He proposed an AI agent that comprehensively manages a series of processes in electron microscopy analysis (file management, stitching, registration, inpainting, slice reconstruction, etc.). Optimized for parallel processing on a GPU cloud environment, it achieves up to 10 times faster processing compared to traditional manual workflows.
2. Detection over Segmentation: A New Approach for Multi-Particle Picking in 3D Real-World CryoET
   He proposed a new AI method for automatically detecting particles with high accuracy in cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) data in real-world environments. This new approach offers a balance of efficiency and accuracy, replacing conventional segmentation-based methods.

Furthermore, He gave an invited lecture at “Exploring Foundation Models in Medical Image Analysis: Applications, Challenges, and Uncertainties,” where he introduced the challenges of foundation models in the medical field and my unique approach to solving them. He also reported on the latest advances in AI analysis of brain imaging such as fMRI.

Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award in the Science and Technology Field (Research Division) for fiscal year 2026. His achievement is titled “Research on Interactive Content Display Technology.”

To the university headquarters page

To Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology page

To Research Institute of Erectircal Communication page

We enjoyed cherry-blossom viewing at Katahira campus.

We invited Professor Yu-Chiang Frank Wang from National Taiwan University to give a lecture entitled “Towards Reliable VLA in Physical AI: Reasoning, Efficiency, and Truthfulness.”

Kumpei Ogawa (completed his doctoral program in March 2026) has been selected for the 2025 Dean’s Award of the Graduate School of Information Science. This award is given to students in each department of the Graduate School of Information Science who are recognized for their particularly outstanding academic performance. Mr. Ogawa’s doctoral dissertation was titled “Research on VR Redirection Techniques Incorporating Physical Space Constraints.”

Researcher Guanghan Zhao gave oral presentations on the following two accepted papers at the 33rd IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR & 3DUI) 2026, a top conference in the field of virtual reality research. The papers will be published on IEEE Xplore at a later date.

• Guanghan Zhao, Yangyang Cai, Kazuyuki Fujita, Robert W. Lindeman, Yoshifumi Kitamura: BlanchTouch: Bringing Fingertip Blanch Detection into Mixed Reality for Touch Input on Flat Surfaces, Proceeding of 2026 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR & 3DUI) （IEEE Xplore で 公開予定）
• Guanghan Zhao, Louis Teys, Gyeonghwan Yang, Shengdong Zhao, and Yoshifumi Kitamura: FanType: Intention-Inferring Fan-shaped Thumb Interface for Text Entry on Small XR Keyboards, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics （IEEE Xplore で 公開予定）

The research introduction video page for the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center for Cyber & Real Spaces, headed by Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura, has been released.

The sixth research meeting of the Neural Stimulation Interface Research Committee will be held at Tohoku University on March 6, 2026. As part of this meeting, we conducted a lab tour of our laboratory today for members of the Neural Stimulation Interface Research Committee. We received many valuable comments.

the Neural Stimulation Interface Research Committee

Professor Kazunori Terada of Gifu University visited and gave a talk titled “Reading Minds, Moving Minds: Bayesian Theory of Mind and the Science of Behavioral Change Signals.”

Dr. Eddie Chua, Deputy Head of the Plasma Physics and Diagnostics Division at ASTAR (Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research), visited us and gave a talk titled: Data, Models, and Materials for Fusion Energy: Computational and AI-Driven Research at the ASTAR FEAT Centre

Mr. Kumpei Ogawa’s Doctoral Dissertation Final Defense (public session) was held.

The title of the dissertation was “Research on VR Redirection Techniques Incorporating Physical Space Constraints.”

The main research groups of the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center for Cyber & Real Spaces have expanded their research activities by relocating from the main building of the Research Institute of Electrical Communication to the newly completed Global Connect Hub – Atelier Q∞, located directly south of it.

Dr. Woan-Shiuan (Winnie) Chien, an Incoming Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan, with whom we are conducting collaborative research, visited us and gave us a talk. The titke of her talk was “Multimodal Interaction Modeling: Bias-Aware Emotion Understanding in Interactive Contexts“.

Prof. Jason Orlosky from Augusta University, School of Computer and Cyber Sciences, with whom we are conducting collaborative research, visited us and gave us a talk. The titel of his talk was “Mixed Reality Interfaces for Industrial Workflows”.

Our joint research project with Asst. Prof. Yang Jianfei (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) has been accepted for the “Tohoku University-NTU Singapore Joint Research Fund.” This fund was established to promote and encourage joint research between Tohoku University and NTU Singapore. Out of 15 applications, three projects were selected following a joint review by both universities.

• Project Title: Safeguarding Elderly Users in Embodied Task Planning with LLM
• NTU Principal Investigator: Asst. Prof. Yang Jianfei (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
• Tohoku University Principal Investigator: Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura (Research Institute of Electrical Communication)

Article page of Global Engagement Division, Tohoku University