Tom is a cognitive scientist with roots in computer science and cybernetics. He investigates how mind arises from the dynamic interplay of brain, body, and environment, drawing on artificial life, agent-based modeling, human-computer interaction, and philosophy of mind.

Kaori keeps the unit running smoothly — handling equipment purchases, travel and visits, workshops, and the day-to-day operations that support our research. Please contact her with any requests.

Mark is a cognitive scientist and philosopher who studies how behaviour shapes — and is shaped by — complex systems across biological, psychological, social, and ecological scales. His current work centres on Wayshaping, a multiscale framework for behaviour change he co-developed, which reframes the intention–action gap as a set of coordination challenges across scales and recasts individuals as multilevel collective intelligences.

Milan is a cognitive neuroscientist and neural engineer with a background in AI and machine learning. He investigates how neural noise and the complex interplay of brain, body, and environment shape decision-making and cognition, combining EEG with computational modeling.

Brian is one of the unit's Lead Research Technicians and our equipment specialist, with his center of operations in the Human Behavior Lab in the Central Building. He served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force as an Aircraft Electrical and Environmental Systems Specialist before completing a BSc in Psychology. He designs and maintains the unit's experimental hardware — including a vibrating table for artificial life experiments — co-runs EEG data collection for our perceptual crossing studies, and serves as the unit's licensed drone pilot.

Tae is one of the unit's Lead Research Technicians and our bilingual ethics specialist, managing the daily operations of our main office in Lab 2. Born and raised in Okinawa, she coordinates IRB and Human Subjects Research compliance across the unit's experiments, leads participant recruitment and scheduling, and co-runs EEG data collection for our perceptual crossing studies — including our ongoing collaboration with Kyoto University Hospital on anorexia nervosa.

Kazuma investigates the sense of agency — the subjective feeling of "I did it" — in exploratory movement under uncertainty. Combining control-detection tasks, metacognitive measures, and motor adaptation paradigms, he examines how agency arises in situations where prediction breaks down, such as novel motor learning. He is co-hosted by Shunichi Kasahara's Cybernetic Humanity Studio (Sony CSL) at OIST.

Georgii brings a background in theoretical astrophysics to questions at the intersection of artificial life and astrobiology. He investigates how complex systems self-organize and how enclosed ecosystems adapt to stress, drawing on nonlinear dynamics, cellular automata, and agent-based models — with current work on intermediate-perturbation dynamics, Daisyworld variants, and monotile self-assembly.

Kensei's doctoral work used individual movement patterns to probe the ecology and evolution of social insects. He was co-supervised at ECSU, with primary supervision by Tom Bourguignon (Evolutionary Genomics Unit). Thesis: Individual Movement Patterns as Reflections and Predictors of Ecology and Evolution in Social Insects (PhD conferred 2026-03-31)

Natalya's doctoral work used the Self-Optimization model and Hopfield networks to investigate how associative learning gives rise to creativity in adaptive systems. She played a central role advancing ECSU's research based on computational modeling and artificial life. Thesis: Learning to Be Creative: A Computational Investigation of the Role of Associative Learning in Creativity (PhD conferred 2026-01-31).

Shannon's doctoral work combined personality science and neuroscience to examine how intrinsic neural timescales shape the sense of self across age and individual differences. She played a central role in ECSU's perceptual crossing and EEG hyperscanning research. Thesis: Investigations into the Neuroscience of the Self: Personality and Age from the Perspective of Intrinsic Neural Timescales (PhD conferred 2026-01-31).

Eric's doctoral work combined simulation and experiment to investigate the neurophysiological basis of inter-brain synchrony during social interaction, building on coupled-oscillator models and EEG hyperscanning analyses of the perceptual crossing experiment. Thesis: An Investigation into Inter-brain Synchrony using Simulation and Experimental Approaches (PhD conferred 2025-03-31).

Ivan's doctoral work analyzed collective dynamics in strikingly different social groups — from honey bees to football players — revealing shared signatures of self-organization and critical dynamics. Thesis: On the Analysis of Collective Dynamics in Social Groups with Bees and Football Players as Case Studies (PhD conferred 2025-06-30).