Professor Kenji Doya of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) has been selected as the recipient of the 9th Tateishi Special Prize, presented by the Tateishi Science and Technology Foundation.
Established in 2010, the Tateishi Prize commemorates the achievements of Kazuma Tateishi, founder of OMRON Corporation, and Takao Tateishi, the foundation’s first chairman. The prize honors researchers with outstanding achievements in the fields of electronics and information engineering who have made broad societal contributions under the guiding principle of harmony between humans and machines. The award ceremony and commemorative lecture are scheduled to be held in Kyoto in October.
Doya’s selection recognizes his pioneering research in artificial intelligence and robotics by drawing inspiration from how living organisms learn through trial and error. The foundation commends his contributions in three key areas. First, he has advanced reinforcement learning theory, laying the foundation for systems that can autonomously acquire new behaviors in physical environments. Second, he applied the theory to understand the learning mechanism of the brain, contributing to a new interdisciplinary field that bridges neuroscience and information engineering. Third, he has contributed to the society by nurturing researchers through interdisciplinary educational programs and establishing a major international research hub at OIST.
Upon receiving news of the award, Doya commented, “I am deeply grateful and honored that our research in neuroscience and robotics that we began at OIST has been recognized in this way. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the lab members and collaborators who have worked together with me over the past 22 years since our laboratory was established.”
After earning his PhD in Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Doya conducted research in neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute. He later worked at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) in Kyoto, where he engaged in research on autonomous learning robots and the neural mechanisms of learning. In 2004, prior to the establishment of OIST, he joined the first group of researchers in the institute’s preparatory research projects. Following the official launch of OIST in 2011, he has led the Neural Computation Unit, pursuing innovative research from both engineering and biological perspectives with the aim of developing reinforcement learning algorithms and uncovering their neural mechanisms in the brain.
He is currently working on experiments aimed at generating a unified theory that explains how the brain perceives external states and initiates actions, as well as on the development of AI technologies to support this goal. This research is expected to contribute to a deeper understanding of human motor skills and decision-making mechanisms, and to inform technologies that support and enhance these functions.
Doya has received numerous accolades both in Japan and internationally, including the JSPS Prize, the Tsukahara Memorial Award, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award for Science and Technology, and the Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society.
