Dr. Donald DEGRAEN (HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury, New Zealand) visited us and gave us a talk.

We enjoyed cherry-blossom viewing at Katahira campus.

Seven of us visited the Universal Communication Research Institute of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Keihanna Science City, Kyoto.

JST ASPIRE FOR TOP SCIENTISTS (Project: Mental Well-being Intelligence: A Community for Data-driven Mental Well-being Research) Kickoff Symposium was held at RIEC, Tohoku University

https://aspire-mwi.org/aspire-mwi-kickoff-symposium-at-tohoku-university/

JST ASPIRE FOR TOP SCIENTISTS (Project: Mental Well-being Intelligence: A Community for Data-driven Mental Well-being Research)
Kickoff Symposium will be held at The University of Tokyo.

IEEE VR 2025 was held in Saint-Malo, France.

Mr. Kumpei Ogawa made an oral presentation, and Ms. Yuhui Wang made an oral presentation and a demo presentation.

Ms. Yuhui Wang received Honorable Mention Best Research Demo Award.

• Kumpei Ogawa, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kazuki Takashima, Yoshifumi Kitamura. Redirected Drawing: Expanding the Perceived Canvas Size in VR.
• Yuhui Wang, Kazuki Takashima, Masamitsu Ito, Takeshi Kobori, Tomo Asakura, Kazuyuki Fujita, Hong Guang, Yoshifumi Kitamura. VirtuEleDent: A Compact XR Tooth-Cutting Training System Using a Physical EMR-based Dental Handpiece and Teeth Model.
• Yuhui Wang, Kazuki Takashima, Masamitsu Ito, Takeshi Kobori, Tomo Asakura, Kazuyuki Fujita, Hong Guang, Yoshifumi Kitamura. Demonstration of VirtuEleDent: A Compact XR Tooth-Cutting Training System Using a Physical EMR-based Dental Handpiece and Teeth Model.

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award.

https://www.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/en/award-en/2025022604/

Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura has been listed on the SIGGRAPH Member Profile.
https://www.siggraph.org/inside-siggraph/member-profiles/profile/?member=yoshifumi-kitamura

Dr. Shio Miyafuji (Institute of Science Tokyo) and Dr. Ayaka Ishii (NTT Communication Science Laboratories) visited our lab and gave us talks.

Dr. Rui Wang (CSIRO, Australia) and students from Taipei Medical University visited our lab.

We enjoyed a farewell party.

Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura received the Lifetime Community Contribution Award at the 4th Japan ACM SIGCHI Chapter Awards in 2024.
This award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of science and technology related to the interaction between humans and information technology. In addition to making significant contributions to the development of the field through his own research and community activities, he has also promoted activities that connect the global and Japanese research communities, and has worked to enhance Japan’s presence in the international research community.

https://sigchi.jp/award/2024/result.en.html#YoshifumiKitamura

Mr. Gu Lin from RIKEN visited us and gave a lecture. In addition, he had the opportunity to experience our research.

We held End-of-Year Meeting/Party.

Prof. Makoto Okabe of Shizuoka University visited us and gave us a talk.

Our paper has been published in Springer, Behavior Research Methods.
How Do Asians Express Emotions Through Body Movement?
Cheng, Miao, Chia-huei Tseng, Ken Fujiwara, Shoi Higashiyama, Abby Weng, and Yoshifumi Kitamura. Toward an Asian-based bodily movement database for emotional communication, Journal: Behavior Research Methods, 57(1), 1-16

• Tohoku University Press Release

The following researchers visited our laboratory and gave symposium-style talks. We also gave demonstrations of our research and discussed various topics.

• Rob LINDEMAN Professor, HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Susanne SCHMIDT Lecturer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Donald DEGRAEN Senior Lecturer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Samara MORRISON Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Benjamin WATSON Associate Professor, North Carolina State University, USA
• Benjamin TAG Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Australia

Selected for JST “ASPIRE for TOP,” Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem.
Title: Mental Well-being Intelligence: A Data-driven Research Community on Human Psychological Health

We participated in the 58th Joint Relay Race of ECEI and RIEC.

Prof. Yuki Igarashi of Ochanomizu University came and gave us a talk.