International Research Collaboration Secures Five-Year Funding from Japan Science and Technology Agency
CUNY Hunter College is part of a newly formed international research consortium that has been awarded funding through the Japan Science and Technology Agency’s (JST) ASPIRE program, supporting a five-year initiative running from January 2026 to March 2031.
The project, centered on the emerging field of Expertise Science and Technology (“ExSciTe”), brings together researchers across Japan, Europe, and North America to advance the science of human skill augmentation — exploring how technologies such as mixed reality and robotics can push the boundaries of human sensorimotor performance, and uncovering the underlying mechanisms through neuroscience, computational modeling, and psychophysics.
The grant will fund reciprocal research visits between collaborating institutions in Japan and partner labs abroad, as well as the organization of workshops and symposia at major international conferences including CHI, IROS, ICRA, and the Neural Control of Movement meeting. Japanese host institutions include Sony CSL Tokyo, along with groups led by Prof. Jun Morimoto, Prof. Jun Rekimoto, and Prof. Yoshio Ishiguro in Tokyo and Kyoto.
The award follows a competitive two-stage evaluation process comprising a written proposal review and a formal interview. Principal investigators describe the collaboration as a significant step toward establishing skill augmentation as a recognized interdisciplinary research field.
Project Title: Global Skill-Science Network for Transferring and Breaking the Limits of Human Expertise
[Australia] Peter Choong, Professor, Department of Surgery & Department of Orthopedics, University of Melbourne
[Switzerland] Friedhelm Hummel, Professor, Clinical Neuroengineering Brain Mind Institute, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
[UK] Maria Herrojo Ruiz, Reader, Department of Psychology, University of London Goldsmiths
[US] NISHIDA Jun, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland
[US] Oyewole Oyekoya, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, The City University of New York
[US] Peter Stone, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin
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