News

We are pleased to announce that Luigi De Gennaro, Professor in the Department of Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome and Director of the Sleep Psychophysiology Laboratory, has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his sustained contributions to the science of sleep–wake regulation and levels of consciousness.

Over many years, Professor De Gennaro has developed an internationally influential research program centered on canonical EEG elements of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. His comprehensive review in Sleep Medicine Reviews systematically mapped the generation mechanisms and functional roles of sleep spindles, establishing a thalamo–cortical framework for understanding spindle activity. In NeuroImage (2005), he introduced the concept of an individual “fingerprint” of the sleep EEG, demonstrating stable inter-individual differences in NREM power topography and providing a reliable phenotype for longitudinal tracking of consciousness levels and cognitive traits. Through studies of K-complexes in stage-2 sleep—and subsequent work in Alzheimer’s disease cohorts—he further showed the value of K-complexes as indices of sleep stability, synchronization, and pathological change. These achievements have refined the physiological understanding of how conscious states are regulated during sleep and supplied reusable signal-based markers for clinical applications and computational modeling.

• 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 Jean-Pierre Changeux—Professor Emeritus at the Institut Pasteur and the Collège de France, and a member of the French Academy of Sciences—has been elected an Academician of the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his foundational contributions to the theory of allosteric receptors, the first identification of a neurotransmitter receptor, and neural models spanning synaptic selection to the mechanisms of conscious access.

Over decades of work, Professor Changeux has pursued a systematic, cross-scale program unifying the molecule–synapse–network levels. With Jacques Monod and Jeffries Wyman, he proposed the Monod–Wyman–Changeux (MWC) model in Journal of Molecular Biology (1965), establishing the classic framework for allosteric regulation of receptors and ion channels; in the 1970s his team isolated and identified the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), widely recognized as the first neurotransmitter receptor to be identified, and advanced its structural and functional characterization; he then proposed in PNAS (1973) the theory of “epigenesis of neural networks by selective stabilization of synapses,” and further articulated synaptic selection and competition during development in Nature (1976). At the systems level, together with Stanislas Dehaene and Michel Kerszberg, he introduced the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) model in PNAS (1998), linking computational mechanisms of conscious access to whole-brain broadcasting dynamics. These contributions provide a firm foundation for understanding the biological basis of consciousness and offer important guidance for the modelability, verifiability, and controllability of artificial consciousness 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 Julia B. Hirschberg, the Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, has been elected an Academician of the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of her foundational contributions to the computational modeling of speech prosody and discourse structure, text-to-speech (TTS) and spoken dialogue systems, and language-based interaction research targeting “consciousness cues” such as trust/deception, emotion, and empathy.

Over many years, Professor Hirschberg has advanced a systematic, experiment-driven and engineering-oriented agenda to “enable machines to understand and generate the consciousness cues in human speech.” She pioneered the integration of discourse structure with prosodic information to improve the naturalness and fluency of TTS, and leveraged these insights to develop methods for automatic recognition of speaker states (e.g., anger, fear, surprise) and derivative states (e.g., uncertainty, deception). Her team further explored dialogic coordination/entrainment, trust and charismatic speech, and empathic speech expression and synthesis in clinical and service contexts, thereby advancing language-interaction models that support the reportability of conscious states and their deployment in real systems. Collectively, this body of work provides computational pathways for understanding the “signs of consciousness” in human–machine interaction and lays the groundwork for multilingual, cross-cultural intelligent speech interfaces.

• 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 Andreas Bartels, head of the Vision & Cognition Lab at the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), University of Tübingen, has been elected an Academician of the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his systematic contributions to the neural mechanisms of vision and consciousness, and to the roles of feedback and context.

Over many years, Professor Bartels and his collaborators have used neuroimaging and causal-intervention paradigms to reveal the neural hubs linking global–local processing to conscious perception. In the Journal of Neuroscience (2013), they showed that the anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS) directly participates in the conscious perception of illusory wholes. In the Journal of Neuroscience (2018), they proposed a “general mechanism of perceptual organization,” demonstrating that posterior parietal cortex acts as a hub for scene segmentation across multiple motion cues, accompanied by decreased responses in early visual cortex—consistent with feedback modulation predicted by predictive coding. At the level of feedback and prediction, the team reported in Cerebral Cortex (2017) that predictive signals in early visual areas (V1–V3) can arise via feedback pathways from higher-level regions. At the level of representation and subjective experience, they showed in the Journal of Neuroscience (2018) that activity patterns in hV4 encode both external color and the behavioral expression of color imagery, bridging stimulus-driven and internally generated color perception. Together, these studies provide cross-level evidence for how context and feedback shape conscious vision, and they offer important reference points for computational modeling of “reportability and global broadcasting” in artificial consciousness 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 David Gamez, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Middlesex University London and a leading scholar of machine consciousness, has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his systematic work on machine/artificial consciousness, the measurement and evaluation of consciousness, and its mathematical formalization.

Over the years, Professor Gamez has advanced a research program that makes consciousness measurable through integrated theoretical and empirical approaches: his early review, “Progress in Machine Consciousness” (2008), offered a classic, field-shaping framework for machine consciousness; in Frontiers in Psychology (2014) he proposed a theory-neutral framework for measuring consciousness built around a sequence of definitions–assumptions–metrics; and his monograph Human and Machine Consciousness (2018) further laid out a testable foundation for consciousness science and explored how to make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-injured patients, and machines. Together, these contributions provide key methodological tools for evaluating artificial consciousness and cross-system comparisons.

• 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 James J. Heckman—economist at the University of Chicago, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor, and Director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD)—has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC), in recognition of his foundational work on sample-selection bias correction (the “Heckman correction”), human capital and life-cycle skill formation, and the economic evaluation and policy impact of early childhood education.

Over the years, Professor Heckman has used rigorous econometric methods and long-term follow-ups to illuminate how individual development, family environments, and educational investments shape adult skills and socioeconomic outcomes: methodologically, he proposed and developed the now-standard framework for correcting non-random sample selection, a contribution for which he received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences; substantively, he and collaborators advanced the life-cycle skill-formation framework, demonstrating the multiplier effect that early investments exert (“skills beget skills”); and in policy evaluation, his cost–benefit analyses show that high-quality, comprehensive birth-to-five programs can yield about 13% annual social returns, while classic preschool programs deliver approximately 7–10% per year—evidence that has informed education and social policy worldwide.

• 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 Jean Decety, a social neuroscientist and Irving B. Harris Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC), in recognition of his foundational work in the social neuroscience of empathy, self–other representation, and moral cognition.

Over the years, Prof. Decety has used integrated experimental and theoretical approaches to elucidate the neural mechanisms of human empathy. With collaborators, he advanced a framework that couples bottom-up emotion sharing with top-down regulatory control, emphasizing the necessity of distinguishing self from other during empathic responses. His team’s neuroimaging studies have shown partial overlap between the neural substrates of observing others’ pain and experiencing pain oneself, while also revealing distinct processing when adopting self versus other perspectives. In addition, animal research he co-authored provided evidence that rats display helping behavior toward distressed conspecifics, broadening our understanding of the evolutionary roots and biological bases of empathy.

• 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 Seeram Ramakrishna, a materials engineering scholar at the National University of Singapore, has been elected an academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) for his systematic contributions to electrospun nanofibers, the sustainable and circular materials economy, and cross-disciplinary governance of engineering.

Over many years, Academician Ramakrishna has led his team to advance electrospun nanofibers, building an end-to-end research program that spans methodology through applications. His academic and international impact is widely recognized: he has been elected an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology. In 2024, he received the Chinese Government Friendship Award. In sustainable and circular materials, he has proposed and implemented a “materials–devices–systems” roadmap and evaluation framework—from material intelligence to embodied intelligent systems—providing clear levers for verification and real-world deployment.

• 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 Fred H. “Rusty” Gage of the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC), in recognition of his foundational contributions to adult neurogenesis and neural plasticity, the effects of physical activity and enriched environments on brain function, and neuronal genomic diversity driven by L1 (LINE-1) retrotransposons.

Over many years, Professor Gage has led a sustained research program in adult neurogenesis. His collaborative work provided direct evidence that the adult human hippocampus continues to generate new neurons and showed that voluntary exercise and environmental enrichment can significantly promote neurogenesis and enhance learning and memory—overturning a long-standing textbook assumption. He has also proposed and substantiated key mechanisms of neuronal genomic mosaicism, revealing the activity of L1 retrotransposons in neural progenitors and neurons and its relationship to diversity in brain function. These advances have provided important underpinnings for understanding the biological basis of consciousness and cognition.

• 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 Jingnan Liu—Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Professor at Wuhan University (former President of Wuhan University and founding President of Duke Kunshan University)—has been elected a Honorary Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC), in recognition of his systematic and pioneering contributions to geodetic reference frame theory, BeiDou/GNSS high-precision positioning technologies, spatiotemporal intelligence, and core software R&D and major engineering applications.

Over the years, Professor Liu has led sustained efforts in the fundamental theories and key technologies of satellite navigation and positioning: he established China’s first Continuous Operating Reference Stations (CORS) system, oversaw the overall design of the national BeiDou Ground-Based Augmentation System, and spearheaded the first provincial-level BeiDou augmentation system in Hubei Province. His team developed internationally influential precision data-processing software for satellite navigation and multi-constellation precise-orbit determination methods, and conquered critical challenges in high-precision data processing for the heterogeneous BeiDou constellation, providing a solid foundation for the engineering deployment and large-scale application of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

• 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.