ATR Fellow
ATR Fellow is the title which ATR bestows upon worldly eminent researchers.The title is given to ATR researchers with a high reputation both inside and outside Japan, and whose future work is expected to be highly promising. Fellows are elected by a Judging Committee which consists of ATR and non-ATR members.
On Apr.1,2004, Dr.Mitsuo Kawato, the Director of ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories was elected to be the first ATR Fellow.
On Mar.29,2005, Dr.Seiichi Yamamoto, now the invited researcher and the former Director of ATR Spoken Language Communication Research Laboratories was nominated as the second ATR Fellow.
On Mar.10,2006, for the third ATR Fellow, Dr.Peter Christopher Davis, Senior Researcher of ATR Adaptive Communication Research Laboratories was nominated.
On Mar.7 2008, Dr. Satoshi Nakamura, the director of ATR Spoken Language Communication Research Laboratories, was appointed the fourth ATR Fellow.
On Feb.27 2009, Dr. Norihiro Hagita, the director of ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, was appointed the fourth ATR Fellow.
On Jan.27 2010, Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, group leader of ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, was appointed the fourth ATR Fellow.
On September 26, 2018, Dr. Yukiyasu Kamitani,Visiting Head, Department of Neuroinformatics, Computational Neuroscience Laboratories , was appointed the fourth ATR Fellow.
 Dr.Mitsuo Kawato Apr.1,2004 |
Dr. Kawato
has achieved various research results in the domain of
brain science, effectively using methods which combine theory with
experiments. His most outstanding achievement among other research
results is the Cerebellar internal model. This model was applied to
robotics research, leading to the development of a humanoid robot DB.
His research papers have been cited more than 100 times in the world's
leading scientific publications such as Nature and Science. He has
written 70 journal papers in all, and has given about 100 international
lectures as a guest speaker.
His achievements have thus been widely approved both inside and outside
of Japan, and he has been awarded several prestigious prizes such as
the Outstanding Research Award of the International Neural Network
Society,
Persons of Scientific and Technological Research Merit commended by the
Ministry of State for Science and Technology, the Osaka Science Prize,
the 10th Tsukahara Naka-Akira Memorial Award, and the Tokizane
Toshihiko
memorial award.
In May 2001 he was invited by Professor Sten Grillner, the former
chairman of the selection committee for the Nobel Prize in Physiology
or
Medicine, to give a lecture at the Nobel forum; and in June 2003 he
gave
a lecture at the Nobel symposium as the only guest speaker.
|
 Dr.Seiichi Yamamoto Mar.29,2005 |
Dr.Seiichi Yamamoto has achieved
important work to advance research projects and research development in
spoken language processing. He proposed the method of speech
translation system based on large corpora and machine learning. This
has advanced the multilingualization of the technology and enabled
speech translation to enlarge its domain. Furthermore he has conducted evaluation experiments of corpus-based Japanese-English/Japanese-Chinese speech translaion systems and collected data at Kansai International Airport among other projects. Also outside ATR, on the basis of these achievements, he has extendend this work. For example, he has undertaken research collaboration with C-STAR, the international research consortium for the speech translation techonology. Moreover, during the shift from rule-based to corpus-based speech translation, he led the joint research among three countries, China, Korea and Japan. He has planned and organized numerous special sessions related to corpus-based speech translation techonology, founded IWSLT, the international workshop, and contributed as the committee chairperson. He has thus led the international research activities in corpus-based speech translation techonology and has firmly postioned ATR as a COE on domain of speech translation techonology. |
 Dr.Peter Christopher Davis May.10,2006 |
Dr.Peter Christopher Davis is
recognized for his applications of the physics of complex dynamical
systems to communication science and engineering. Commencing at ATR in 1987, he established research on the use of multistable oscillations and chaos in optical devices for dynamical memory and signal generation. In particular, he is known for demonstrating the concept of feedback control of chaotic mode hopping known as chaotic itinerance, for adaptive signal generation. This has had impact on research in many areas, including brain science and robotics. In recent years he has focused on the dynamics of communication protocols in self-organizing networks, making a major contribution to the successful operation of large-scale ad hoc wireless networks at ATR in 2004. |
 Dr.Satoshi Nakamura Mar.7,2008 |
ATR Fellow
Satoshi Nakamura is recognized for his outstanding achievements in the
practical realization of speech translation systems by advancing
component technologies, speech recognition, language translation, and
speech synthesis. He headed the research project “Corpus-based Spoken
Language Translation Technology” and executed a paradigm shift from
existing rule-based to corpus-based speech translation methods, which
extended the domain portability. He also executed robust speech
recognition in acoustically noisy environments even in hands-free
situation. His leadership resulted in developing Japanese-English and
Japanese-Chinese speech translation systems via mobile phones for the
first time in the world. He also achieved a leadership role in international speech translation research by serving as a rapporteur of APT ASTAP, the Asian Speech Translation Standardization Expert Group. This speech translation system was selected as one of the six Japan's most pioneering technologies in the Council for Science and Technology Policy as Innovation 25 held at the Cabinet Office, where he presented the speech translation system to Mr. Abe, then Prime Minister. By mobilizing all these resources, ATR Spoken Language Communication Research Laboratories started distributed speech translation services “Shabette Honyaku (speak and translate)” via the mobile phones, NTT docomo 905i series, from November 1, 2007. |
 Dr.Norihiro Hagita Feb.27,2009 |
ATR Fellow, Dr. Norihiro Hagita has proposed the new concept of
"Network Robot Technology". In this framework, "visible", "unconscious",
and "virtual" robots which include elements such as portable phones,
environmental sensor networks,
and wearable computers work together by complementing each other's
abilities to enable human-robot interaction and provide services far
beyond the capability of any individual robot.
To promote this technology, as an active leader, he has managed the establishment of many organizations and industry, also has built connections between network robot projects domestically and abroad. He also put efforts on standardization with collaborating with US standards organization OMG and made contributions to academic conferences sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Further, he has secured a variety of competitive public grants, and became a central figure in the field of network robot technology. |
 Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro Jan.27,2010 |
ATR Fellow Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro is recognized for his significant contributions at the forefront
of human-robot interaction research,
including the development of the "Robovie" interactive robots and establishment of the new field of "Android science".
In a time when the field of robotics considered only robots operating in isolation from people, he established a new area of interaction research focusing on the interaction between robots and humans. With his "Robovie" series of interactive robots, he conducted pioneering field trials in elementary schools, museums, railway stations, and shopping malls. These robots are now commercially sold by associated companies. Furthermore, realizing the importance of studying the appearance of robots in human-robot interaction, he established the new research field of android science. Using himself as a model, he developed the "Geminoid", a teleoperated android which has attracted attention worldwide as new medium capable of sending human presence to distant places, and which has been acknowledged by Guinness World Records. As a result of these research activities, he was selected in October-2007 as 26th among the top 100 living geniuses listed in the Synectics Survey of Contemporary Genius by the British consulting company Synectics. In this list, he was not only the highest-ranked Japanese person, but also the highest-ranked engineering researcher. |
 Dr. Yukiyasu Kamitani September 26, 2018 |
ATR Fellow Dr. Yukiyasu Kamitani is recognized for his significant contribution to the field of Brain Science by pioneering the “brain decoding” technology, which deciphers human brain signals using machine learning.
|