We are pleased to announce that Professor Botond Roska, Director of Science at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) and Professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has been elected as an Academician of the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness (WAAC), in recognition of his important contributions to visual neuroscience, retinal neural circuits, central visual pathways, visual information processing, cell-type-specific neural mechanisms, retinal diseases, gene therapy, optogenetic vision restoration, and neural repair.
Professor Botond Roska is an internationally influential scholar in contemporary visual neuroscience, retinal circuit research, and translational ophthalmology. He has long been dedicated to studying how different cell types and neural circuits in the retina, thalamus, and visual cortex process visual information, systematically revealing the multilayered mechanisms of the visual system in terms of structure, function, coding, perception, and disease states. His research has not only advanced our understanding of retinal neural networks, central visual pathways, visual scene feature extraction, and the basic principles of visual information processing, but has also integrated neural circuit mechanisms, molecular technologies, gene therapy, and optogenetic approaches, opening new directions for vision restoration in patients with inherited retinal diseases and blindness. As a leading academic figure at IOB, Professor Roska has continuously promoted the deep integration of basic visual science, clinical ophthalmology, and translational medicine. In collaboration with Professor José-Alain Sahel and others, he has advanced research on optogenetic vision restoration. He has received major honors including the 2019 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the 2020 Körber European Science Prize, and the 2024 Wolf Prize in Medicine, making outstanding contributions to global visual science, neural repair, and brain research.
WAAC believes that the study of artificial consciousness requires not only advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computational models, and philosophical theory, but also in-depth research into perception generation, information coding, neural circuit organization, visual conscious experience, and sensory restoration mechanisms in biological visual systems. Professor Roska’s work in retinal circuits, central visual pathways, visual information processing, cell-type-specific mechanisms, gene therapy, and optogenetic vision restoration provides important theoretical and experimental resources for perception modeling, machine vision, brain-inspired intelligence, explanations of neural mechanisms, multimodal representations of consciousness, sensory reconstruction, neural interfaces, and the construction of consciousness-like perceptual mechanisms in artificial systems. His research path, spanning basic neuroscience, clinical medicine, molecular technology, optogenetics, and translational therapy, offers significant inspiration for connecting biological research on visual consciousness with artificial consciousness modeling.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to visual neuroscience, retinal neural circuits, central visual pathways, visual information processing, neural repair, gene therapy, and optogenetic vision restoration, the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness has decided to confer upon Professor Botond Roska the title of WAAC Academician.
- Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem
WAAC Academicians come from world-leading universities, national academy systems, and frontier research institutions, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the University of California, Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Chicago, University College London, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, the University of Exeter, the French Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and the Max Planck Institute. The body of Academicians includes multiple Nobel Prize laureates, Turing Award laureates, members of national academies of sciences and engineering, Fellows of the Royal Society, and Fellows of internationally important academic organizations such as IEEE, AAAI, AAAS, and the British Academy. By bringing together leading scholars in natural consciousness research, machine consciousness modeling, brain science mechanisms, cognitive robotics, deep learning, brain-computer interfaces, and AI governance, WAAC has built an artificial consciousness research ecosystem that combines scientific depth, technological frontier orientation, philosophical insight, and global collaborative capacity, demonstrating its academic foundation and international influence in the emerging field of artificial consciousness science.
- About WAAC
The World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (https://www.waac.ac/) is a global academic institution established in Paris in 2025. Its mission is to advance frontier research and international collaboration in artificial consciousness through the integration of science, technology, and philosophy. The Academy publishes open research, policy recommendations, evaluation standards, and more. The current President is Academician Yucong Duan, and the Secretary-General is Dr. Yingbo Li. The Honorary Academician List: On May 3, 2025, WAAC released its first batch of Top 100 Honorary Academicians, recognizing scholars who have made foundational or leading contributions to the theory of artificial consciousness.