Academicians
WAAC Academicians are world-leading experts who have made foundational contributions to the theory and practice of artificial consciousness.
Morten Peter Meldal
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2022)
Field of Research
Copper-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (click chemistry)
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2008)
Field of Research
Discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Takaaki Kajita
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Physics (2015)
Field of Research
Atmospheric neutrino oscillations
H. Robert Horvitz
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2002)
Field of Research
Programmed cell death in C. elegans; neural circuits
James J. Heckman
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2000)
Field of Research
Economics; behavioral modeling and consciousness
May-Britt Moser
WAAC Academician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine(2014)
Field of Research
Discovery of grid cells and spatial navigation
Ronald L. Rivest
WAAC Academician, ACM A.M. Turing Award (2002)
Field of Research
RSA public-key cryptosystem
Laurent Itti
WAAC Academician, IEEE Fellow (2017)
Field of Research
Computational models of visual salience and attention
Li-Huei Tsai
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2018)
Field of Research
Alzheimer’s disease mechanisms; gamma-band stimulation
Lucia Regolin
WAAC Academician, Italian national research funding
Field of Research
Animal cognition and consciousness; innate representations
Bruno van Swinderen
WAAC Academician, Australian Research Council funding
Field of Research
Drosophila consciousness and sleep; cross-species consciousness
Barbara Tversky
WAAC Academician, Association for Psychological Science (APS) Fellow
Field of Research
Cognitive psychology; spatial thinking and consciousness
Adam Zeman
WAAC Academician, British Academy-related honors and book awards
Field of Research
Aphantasia and mental imagery; consciousness and autobiographical memory
Andrew Adamatzky
WAAC Academician, British Computer Society (BCS) Fellow
Field of Research
Unconventional computing and self-organization; cues to artificial consciousness
Adam Gazzaley
WAAC Academician, U.S. National Institutes of Health funding
Field of Research
Attention and aging; consciousness and cognitive control
Christoph Gerber
WAAC Academician, 2016 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience
Field of Research
Atomic force microscopy for biomolecular interactions
Barbara J. Sahakian
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the British Academy
Field of Research
Cognitive enhancement and ethics; consciousness and decision-making
Arnaud Delorme
WAAC Academician, CNRS awards
Field of Research
EEG and meditation; oscillations of consciousness
Angela D. Friederici
WAAC Academician, Member of the German Academy of Sciences (2007)
Field of Research
Neural basis of language processing
Elizabeth F. Loftus
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1994)
Field of Research
Malleability of human memory; eyewitness testimony
Douglas Medin
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Cognitive psychology; culture and consciousness
Ellen J. Langer
WAAC Academician, Association for Psychological Science (APS) Fellow
Field of Research
Psychology; mindfulness and consciousness
Diana Reiss
WAAC Academician, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow
Field of Research
Dolphins and mirror self-recognition; animal consciousness
Dov Sagi
WAAC Academician, Honors from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Field of Research
Visual visibility and learning; thresholds of consciousness
Ehud Ahissar
WAAC Academician, Head of Israel Science Foundation Center of Excellence
Field of Research
Touch and active sensing; sensorimotor loops in consciousness
Friedemann Pulvermüller
WAAC Academician, Member of the German Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Language and brain representations; consciousness and meaning
Gualtiero Piccinini
WAAC Academician, Honors from philosophy and computing societies
Field of Research
Mechanistic and computational theories of consciousness
Greg DeAngelis
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Depth perception and stereopsis; conscious perception
Erkki Oja
WAAC Academician, IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award (2015)
Field of Research
Independent component analysis (ICA) and Hebbian learning
Giacomo Indiveri
WAAC Academician, Associate Fellow of Collegium Helveticum (Switzerland)
Field of Research
Neuromorphic computing; cues to artificial consciousness
Ezequiel Morsella
WAAC Academician, Psychology society awards
Field of Research
Passive frame theory; consciousness and action
Étienne Koechlin
WAAC Academician, Member of the French Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Prefrontal cortex and hierarchical control; conscious planning
Cathy J. Price
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
Field of Research
Language networks and reading; conscious comprehension
Geraint Rees
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2010)
Field of Research
Brain networks and computation
Seeram Ramakrishna
WAAC Academician, International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, China Government Friendship Award (2024)
Field of Research
Electrospun nanofibers; sustainable & circular materials; Materials–Devices–Systems roadmap; embodied intelligent systems
Fred H. Gage
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1999)
Field of Research
Adult neurogenesis and neural plasticity
Giacomo Rizzolatti
WAAC Academician, Member of multiple national academies
Field of Research
Mirror neurons; self–other representation and consciousness
Jean Decety
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Field of Research
Empathy and self–other representation; consciousness and sociality
David Gamez
WAAC Academician, UK Research Council funding
Field of Research
Machine consciousness; measures and evaluation of consciousness
Jean-Pierre Changeux
WAAC Academician, Member of the French Academy of Sciences (1977)
Field of Research
Allosteric receptor theory; neural basis of cognition
Julia B. Hirschberg
WAAC Academician, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Fellow
Field of Research
Speech processing; language–consciousness interaction
Andreas Bartels
WAAC Academician, German Research Foundation (DFG) funding
Field of Research
Vision and consciousness; feedback and context
Kenneth Williford
WAAC Academician, Philosophy society honors
Field of Research
Phenomenology and time; philosophy of consciousness
Luigi De Gennaro
WAAC Academician, Italian National Research Council funding
Field of Research
Sleep and wakefulness; levels of consciousness
Mara Mather
WAAC Academician, Association for Psychological Science (APS) Fellow
Field of Research
Attention and emotion; aging and consciousness
Gerwin Schalk
WAAC Academician, Fellow
Field of Research
Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) and communication; disorders of consciousness
Michael N. Shadlen
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Neural mechanisms of decision-making and consciousness
Michael X. Cohen
WAAC Academician, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funding
Field of Research
Neural oscillations and information integration; metrics of consciousness
Ned Block
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Philosophy; phenomenal vs. access consciousness
Michael Graziano
WAAC Academician, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Field of Research
Cognitive neuroscience; Attention Schema Theory
Philip H. S. Torr
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the Royal Society (2023)
Field of Research
Deep learning for scene understanding and recognition
Peter Bentley
WAAC Academician, Computer society and popular science awards
Field of Research
Evolution and self-organization; cues to artificial consciousness
Roi Cohen Kadosh
WAAC Academician, British Academy research fellowship honors
Field of Research
Non-invasive stimulation and cognition; consciousness and numerical processing
Rattan Lal
WAAC Academician, World Food Prize (2020)
Field of Research
Soil carbon sequestration; sustainable agriculture practices
Roi Reichart
WAAC Academician, Israel Science Foundation funding
Field of Research
Language and AI; interpretability and consciousness
Ruzena Bajcsy
WAAC Academician, U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1998)
Field of Research
Computer vision
Risto J. Ilmoniemi
WAAC Academician, Finnish Academy (Academician)
Field of Research
Neurotechnology; consciousness and cortical excitability
Stephen P. Boyd
WAAC Academician, U.S. National Academy of Engineering (2017)
Field of Research
Convex optimization and control engineering
Ron Chrisley
WAAC Academician, Fulbright Scholar
Field of Research
Machine Consciousness and Theories of Representation
Maiken Nedergaard
WAAC Academician, Member Academia Europaea, etc
Field of Research
Glymphatic system; sleep- and consciousness-driven clearance
Włodzisław Duch
WAAC Academician, President of ENNS, etc
Field of Research
Cognitive architectures and consciousness, Artificial life
Minoru Asada
WAAC Academician, IEEE Fellow, etc
Field of Research
Cognitive Developmental Robotics
Nicola S. Clayton
WAAC Academician, Fellow of the Royal Society, etc
Field of Research
Corvid Cognition and Future Planning; Consciousness Indicators
Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos
WAAC Academician, etc
Field of Research
Motor Coding and Conscious Communication
Nilli Lavie
WAAC Academician,FBA, etc
Field of Research
Load Theory; the relationship between attention and consciousness.
Timothy F. Brady
WAAC Academician, etc
Field of Research
Visual Working Memory and Consciousness.
Axel Cleeremans
WAAC Academician, Academician of the Royal Academy of Belgium, etc
Field of Research
Implicit Learning and Consciousness; Reportability and Metacognition.
Shuo-Yen Robert Li
WAAC Academician, IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award, etc
Field of Research
Network coding, Switching theory & switching system.
Yixin Zhong
WAAC Academician, AETDEW Academician，NYAS Member, etc
Field of Research
Communication Theory; Information Theory; Information Science; AI.
Global Academic Ecosystem
Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, and other leading global research centers.