News

We are pleased to announce that Stephen P. Boyd—Samsung Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University—has been elected an Academician of WAAC (World Academy for Artificial Consciousness), in recognition of his pioneering contributions to convex optimization and control engineering, as well as his development of methods–tools–ecosystems for large-scale intelligent systems.

Over the years, Professor Boyd has pursued a research program centered on “convex optimization–control–intelligent systems,” building a chain of evidence from theory to engineering practice: together with Lieven Vandenberghe he co-authored the classic textbook Convex Optimization, systematizing the use of convex analysis and conic programming in engineering; he proposed and popularized the DCP (Disciplined Convex Programming) specification and toolchain (CVX / CVXPY / Convex.jl, etc.), dramatically lowering the barrier to turning mathematical models into reproducible engineering; his tutorial review on ADMM established a general algorithmic framework for convex optimization in distributed and statistical learning; in embedded and real-time control he developed the CVXGEN code generator, enabling millisecond-scale solves; and his courses (e.g., EE364A: Convex Optimization I) and open resources continue to be updated and to benefit both industry and academia. Taken together, this body of work provides testable optimization modeling and computational pathways for “consciousness cues”—such as selective responsiveness, resource allocation, and global coordination—in complex engineered artificial systems.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Ruzena Bajcsy—NEC Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley, and founding director of CITRIS (the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society)—has been elected an Academician of WAAC, in recognition of her systematic contributions to active perception, computer vision and robotics, medical image registration, and the creation of cross-disciplinary research platforms.

Over the years, Professor Bajcsy has pursued a research program centered on “perception–action–interaction,” building a body of work that links theory to engineering practice: in 1988, she published a classic paper in Proceedings of the IEEE that set out a modeling and control framework for Active Perception; in 1978, at the University of Pennsylvania, she founded and led the GRASP Laboratory, establishing a paradigm for robotic perception and multidisciplinary collaboration; and in medical imaging, she and her team introduced elastic matching and digital anatomical atlas methods that helped bring multimodal MRI/PET/CT registration into clinical practice. Taken together, these contributions provide testable computational models and experimental pathways for understanding and engineering “consciousness cues”—such as selective attention, resource allocation, and cross-modal integration—in complex artificial systems.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Risto J. Ilmoniemi—Chair Professor (Emeritus) of Applied Physics and Senior Advisor in the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE) at Aalto University—has been elected an Academician of WAAC (World Academy for Artificial Consciousness), in recognition of his contributions to the continuum from technology to cortical excitability to consciousness.

Over the years, Professor Ilmoniemi has developed a research program centered on “technology–cortical excitability–consciousness,” building a chain of evidence from methods to applications: in 1997, NeuroReport first showed that TMS–EEG can quantify cortical reactivity and effective connectivity; in 2018/2022, he proposed and realized multi-locus/multi-coil TMS (mTMS), enabling electronic targeting and rapid site switching; he leads the ERC Synergy project ConnectToBrain (2019–2026), advancing a closed-loop, multi-locus TMS platform; and he founded Nexstim to drive the industrialization of navigated TMS and TMS–EEG. These advances have made it possible to assess different levels of consciousness by pairing exogenous TMS perturbation with EEG/MEG readouts, wherein the Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI) shows a marked reduction in cortical response complexity during unconsciousness and a rebound upon awakening.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Roi Cohen Kadosh, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey (formerly at the University of Oxford), has been elected an Academician of WAAC in recognition of his systematic contributions to non-invasive brain stimulation and personalized cognitive enhancement, numerical/mathematical cognition, and the brain’s excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance.

Over many years, Professor Cohen Kadosh has advanced a program centered on “individual differences—stimulation control—learning gains,” building a theory-and-engineering evidence chain for “neural stimulation × learning.” In Current Biology (2010), he was the first to show that applying tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) during learning can produce specific and lasting improvements in numerical ability. In Current Biology (2007), he confirmed the causal role of the parietal cortex in number processing by inducing a “virtual acalculia” with TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). In Current Biology (2013), together with collaborators, he demonstrated that training combined with tRNS (transcranial random noise stimulation) yields improvements in learning and brain function lasting up to six months. More recently, in PLOS Biology (2025) and npj Digital Medicine (2025), his work has shown, respectively, mechanism-based modulation of mathematics learning gains via functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling, and the feasibility of home-based enhancement of sustained attention through AI-driven personalization.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University and Director of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration (C-MASC), has been elected an Academician of WAAC in recognition of his systematic contributions to soil carbon sequestration and sustainable agricultural practices.

Over many years, Professor Lal has advanced a “soil-centered” pathway for reducing emissions and increasing yields, building an end-to-end evidence chain that connects scientific mechanisms with engineering and policy. In Science (2004), he published a seminal paper quantifying the global potential of croplands and degraded lands as carbon sinks, establishing an integrated framework that links soil carbon, food security, and climate mitigation. He subsequently detailed actionable routes to enhance carbon sequestration—such as conservation tillage and cover crops—in Geoderma (2004) and other literature. At OSU, he leads C-MASC (the Rattan Lal Center), promoting international collaboration and on-the-ground validation for carbon farming and soil health. For his outstanding contributions, he received the 2020 World Food Prize and the 2024 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, underscoring the foundational role of his research in global food security and climate governance.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Morten Peter Meldal, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, has been elected an Academician of WAAC in recognition of his systematic contributions to click chemistry and the copper-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC).

Over many years, Professor Meldal has built an evidence chain from methods to applications around “rapid, highly selective modular ligation.” In J. Org. Chem. (2002), together with collaborators, he first reported the Cu(I)-catalyzed, regioselective 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition between terminal alkynes and azides (CuAAC), laying the foundation for the reaction’s chemistry and for applications in both solid- and solution-phase settings. In Chemical Reviews (2008), he systematically summarized the mechanism, reaction conditions, and wide-ranging uses of CuAAC in peptide and polymer chemistry and in the functionalization of surfaces and nanostructures, establishing “click chemistry” as an efficient, robust, and combinatorial universal ligation paradigm. For “the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry,” he received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with K. Barry Sharpless and Carolyn R. Bertozzi). Related methods are now widely applied in drug discovery, DNA labeling, and materials creation.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Ronald L. Rivest, Institute Professor at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), has been elected an Academician of WAAC in recognition of his systematic contributions to public-key cryptography, symmetric cryptography, cryptographic hashing, and election security.

Over many years, Professor Rivest has advanced a program centered on “verifiable security,” building an evidence chain from foundational cryptography to socio-technical systems: In Communications of the ACM (1978), he published the original RSA paper, establishing the practical paradigm of modern public-key cryptography; in IETF RFC 1321 (1992), he released the MD5 algorithm, helping drive the widespread use of digital signatures and integrity checking; in 1994/1995, he proposed the parameterizable, implementation-simple RC5 block cipher, demonstrating the engineering feasibility of high-performance symmetric encryption; in a USENIX EVT 2007 paper, he introduced the ThreeBallot/VAV/Twin family of verifiable voting protocols, exploring publicly auditable elections without trusted specialized devices; and the RSA patent, co-invented with collaborators, laid key legal and engineering foundations for secure communications and e-commerce infrastructure.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are pleased to announce that Roi Reichart, Professor in the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Schmidt Career Advancement Chair in AI, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of TACL (Transactions of the ACL), has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his systematic contributions to language and AI, interpretability, and robust learning.

Over many years, Professor Reichart has pursued a program centered on “language—interpretability—robustness,” building an evidence chain from methods to applications: at CoNLL 2017 he proposed Neural Structural Correspondence Learning (NSCL) for cross-domain representation learning and transfer; at ACL 2019 he constructed and studied a zero-shot semantic parsing task and dataset; at NAACL 2025 he provided a stakeholder-centric survey of model interpretability in the LLM era (awarded Best Paper in the Model Analysis and Interpretability track). In addition, as a co-author of a survey on causal inference × NLP, he has advanced a unified perspective on leveraging causal methods to improve model robustness, fairness, and interpretability. Collectively, these works offer testable computational models and experimental pathways for understanding and engineering “consciousness cues” in complex artificial systems—such as selective responses, resource allocation, and global coordination. The Technion NLP Lab likewise designates interpretability and robustness as core research directions, sustaining cross-lingual, cross-domain, and interdisciplinary progress.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are delighted to announce that Peter J. Bentley, Honorary Professor and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL), has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his systematic contributions to bio-inspired evolutionary computation, self-organizing systems, and artificial immune computation.

Over the years, Professor Bentley has pursued a unifying theme of “evolution and self-organization,” building a chain of theoretical and engineering evidence from evolutionary design and creative evolutionary systems to artificial immune systems (AIS): in Evolutionary Design by Computers (Morgan Kaufmann, 1999), which he edited, he systematically argued for the generative power of evolutionary algorithms in engineering and product design; in Creative Evolutionary Systems (Academic Press / Morgan Kaufmann, 2002), he broadened evolutionary-generative methods to creative domains including art, music, and architecture; at GECCO (2001) and in subsequent papers (2001–2002), together with collaborators he proposed AIS for network intrusion detection, integrating negative selection, clonal selection, and gene-library evolution and developing the Dynamic Clonal Selection (DynamiCS) framework; subsequent surveys systematically reviewed immune-inspired intrusion detection, highlighting the self-organizing, distributed, and robust properties of these approaches. Taken together, these works provide testable computational models and experimental pathways for understanding “consciousness cues” in artificial systems—such as selective response, resource allocation, and global coordination—and point to practical routes toward scalable, resilient intelligent behavior.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.

We are delighted to announce that Michael S. A. Graziano, Professor at Princeton University’s Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology and Director of the Graziano Lab (Consciousness & the Social Brain), has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC). He is recognized for proposing and systematically developing the Attention Schema Theory (AST) and for his pioneering contributions to the neural and computational mechanisms of consciousness, social cognition, and engineering pathways toward realizable artificial consciousness.

Over the years, Professor Graziano has taken the coupling between attention and consciousness as a guiding thread, building a cross-level chain of evidence from neurophysiology to computational models and engineering demonstrations: in his Oxford University Press monograph Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013), he advanced a social-brain framework that explains subjective consciousness through an “attention schema”; in Frontiers in Psychology (2015), he provided a systematic, mechanistic exposition of AST; in Frontiers in Robotics & AI (2017), he further argued for AST as a foundation for “engineered artificial consciousness”; in Progress in Neurobiology (2020), he showed through behavioral training and modeling that “attention control depends on internal models”; in PNAS (2019, 2020), together with collaborators he proposed—and demonstrated with behavioral and fMRI evidence—that humans implicitly encode others’ gaze as “force beams/implicit motion” emanating from the eyes, linking social-attention representations across key nodes such as the TPJ and MT+; and in PNAS (2021), he further demonstrated within a neural-network regime that introducing an attention schema can markedly improve endogenous attention control. Earlier, his work in Science (1994) on premotor encoding of peripersonal space laid a neurophysiological foundation for his subsequent trajectory from the space–action interface to models of social attention.

• Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem

Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.

• 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.