As a part of the Tohoku University STEM Summer Program 2026 (TSSP2026), approximately 20 students from the United States and the United Kingdom visited our laboratory.
After a lecture by Professor Kitamura, our laboratory members guided the visitors through the lab and introduced our research with demonstrations.
The visit concluded with an engaging discussion and exchange of ideas between the students and our lab members.
We welcomed Dr. Toshikazu Kuroda and Dr. Takeshi Ogawa from the Dynamic Brain Imaging, Cognitive Mechanisms Laboratories, Brain Information Communication Research Laboratory Group, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), who gave research talks at our laboratory.
The lectures were titled “Behavior: How to Conceptualize it, Measure it, and Analyze it” and “Development of a brain-state prediction method based on EEG-fMRI simultaneous measurement and its application”.
They also visited our laboratory facilities, where we had a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss various research topics.
We welcomed Distinguished Professor Chia-Wen Lin from National Tsing Hua University, who gave a lecture on the topic of “AI-Powered IC Design”.
In the lecture, Professor Lin introduced cutting-edge technologies for AI-driven IC design and manufacturing support, as well as the latest research achievements toward their practical applications.
Professor Lin also discussed the potential of next-generation EDA technologies enabled by the fusion of AI and semiconductor design.
Assistant Professor Lin Gu Invited to AI4X Accelerate Conference 2026 as an AI for Science Awardee
Assistant Professor Lin Gu has been invited to participate in AI4X Accelerate Conference 2026 as one of the awardees of Singapore’s AI for Science (AI4S) initiative.
AI4S is a landmark S$120 million (approximately ¥14 billion) national initiative spearheaded by the National Research Foundation to transform scientific discovery through artificial intelligence. The program brings together leading AI researchers and domain experts from top institutions in Singapore and around the world to tackle major scientific challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Dr. Gu is a co-lead investigator of an AI4S project focused on developing foundation models and world models for fusion plasma science. By integrating large-scale AI models with scientific data and domain knowledge, the project aims to advance the understanding, prediction, and control of fusion plasmas while accelerating the process of scientific discovery.
Research Fellow Xiyue WANG and M2 student Akira Murakami each gave oral presentations on two papers accepted for ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2026, held in Singapore. Xiyue WANG’s paper received the Honorable Mention Award.
Dr. Xiyue WANG also gave a demonstration of the content of the paper she presented.
A ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of the Global Connect Hub – Atelier Q∞, where our laboratory is located.
Assistant Professor Lin Gu served as the chair of the first oral session on “Computational Imaging” at Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR), the world’s premier conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision, on June 5, 2026.
He co-chaired the session with Professor Katie Bouman of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who led the development of the AI algorithms that enabled the first-ever image of a black hole.
Prof. Yiyu Shu from the University of Notre Dame in America gave a lecture while visiting our laboratory. The title of talk was “From Trade-offs to Talk: Enabling Speech-Driven Healthcare with LLMs”.
Dr. Xiyue Wang, a researcher at the Accessibility Lab of Miraikan (The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) and a research fellow at the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center for Cyber and Real Spaces, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, gave a lecture at the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) seminar.
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:
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:
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 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
