HIAS Bridges NEXT

SHAOFENG ZHENG

Research field:Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology

●What are your current research interests?

How gene and environmental factors (e.g., culture, childhood experience) independently and interactively shape individuals’ empathy and support-seeking

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Writing interesting papers

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Solve problems with a systematic, scientific approach

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Understanding human nature

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Create my own theory or research field and inspire others to join me

Toshimitsu Aritake

Research field:Statictical machine learning

●What are your current research interests?

I am focusing on machine learning, particularly researching distribution shift aspects such as transfer learning and domain adaptation, and also meta-optimization, which involves learning how to optimize.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I feel a sense of excitement when I thoroughly understand the problem at hand and come up with models or analytical methods that fit that problem well.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

The pursuit of novelty and self-improvement.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

Initially, I was motivated by my admiration for how my mentor and senior colleagues in the lab approached their research. Afterward, I worked at a company, but I couldn’t let go of my desire to become a researcher, so I returned to the path of research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I aim to advance research on two fronts: addressing practical problems while also tackling mathematically intriguing problems.

Marco Nutta

Research field:Marketing

●What are your current research interests?

Branding, Brand coolness, consumer behavior, foodservice and lodging marketing

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Learning a new skill each time I start a project.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Discovering the unknown and confirming or denying assumptions

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My mother because she is a researcher and I always wanted to be like her.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I would like to be well-known for brand coolness research. Additionally, my field lacks theoretical development and I would like to one day to contribute to the development of a new theory specific to hospitality and tourism.

Huynh Nguyen Khoi

Research field:International Relations, Quantitative Methodology

●What are your current research interests?

My main interests are studying the dynamics between globalization and populism. I am also working on applications of machine learning and causal inference methods in social sciences.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Finishing a project and sharing my ideas with others

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Understand the world more little by little

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I have always been curious about studying politics, but it was my professors and mentors that really inspired me to pursue research and academia.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope to expand my skillset and collaborate with many other researchers.

Mitsuhiko Ishikawa

Research field:Social Neuroscience, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

●What are your current research interests?

How do humans execute appropriate social behaviours in response to various contexts?
How do humans acquire sociality throughout development?

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Eureka moment—such as when a groundbreaking experimental design, task, or theory emerges after long hours of contemplation.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Everyday life

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

My grandfather was a university professor, so I was familiar with academia from a young age.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Research has no final destination, so I aspire to be a researcher who continues exploring until the very end of my life.

Mioko Sudo

Research field:Developmental psychology, with a particular focus on children’s social cognition and socialization processes

●What are your current research interests?

I am currently broadly interested in young children’s social cognition, including their ability to stand in other people’s shoes and their ability to empathize with others from diverse backgrounds, as well as how the development of such social-cognitive abilities could be influenced by children’s unique social and cultural environment.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

What I enjoy most about research is the opportunity to pursue answers to questions that pique my interest, and through that pursuit, being able to contribute a piece (no matter how tiny) to the puzzle of understanding human development.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

To me, research is like a continuous learning journey, involving seeking answers to questions, acquiring new knowledge and skills, and evolving as a thinker.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

During my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to be involved in projects focusing on the language and cognitive development of foreign national children in Japan and Japanese children in the United States. I felt like learning about the unique struggles of such children was like learning about my childhood self since I grew up in multiple cultural contexts myself. My interest in learning about how such children’s struggles could potentially be alleviated served as the trigger for my interest in research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope to be able to contribute to the advancement of knowledge on children’s social cognition, and to become able to guide the next generation of researchers in their academic pursuits.

Kim Honjik

Research field:Built environment and human behavior

●What are your current research interests?

Social sustainability, including health promotion, aging in place, well-being, and social participation

●What do you enjoy most about research?

When I was able to add a brick to the foundation of studies

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Adventure for a better future/life

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I am interested in the topic of “where we prefer to live.” As East Asian countries are facing rapid population aging, I have focused my research on the types of neighborhoods that older adults are most satisfied with.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I hope my research will help create living environments where people of all ages can feel happy.

Ryoya Yamasaki

Research field:Machine Learning, Statistics

●What are your current research interests?

Ordinal regression, Sparse modeling

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I like being able to decide what to do by myself.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

It’s just something I like to do, but I have to be cognizant of a job 🙂

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I got hooked on ‘PSYCHO-PASS’ and ‘Ghost in the Shell’ when I was in a high school. This led me to informatics and research.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I want to do research that will still be cited 100 years from now.

Asako Toyama

Research field:Experimental psychology , Computational Behavioral Science

●What are your current research interests?

Decision-making, reinforcement learning models, emotion, physiological responses, computational psychiatry

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I enjoy being able to approach topics of interest in my own way while learning along the way. I also find it exciting to hear about other researchers’ work.

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Trial and error driven by curiosity

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I initially became interested in memory, which led me to study psychology. Over time, my research interests expanded to various other topics.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

I aspire to be a researcher who integrates multiple perspectives—such as cognitive science, computational modeling, and psychology—to deepen our understanding of human behavior and the mind.

Davide Luigi Totaro

Research field:Comparative Private Law

●What are your current research interests?

Contracts, Insurance, Fintech/Insurtech, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Protection

●What do you enjoy most about research?

Providing solutions and insights on practical legal issues while advancing the theoretical framework, bridging the gap between industry and academia

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Advance human knowledge-understanding and problem-solving capability

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

The freedom to research, express yourself, and pursue knowledge, privileges that only academia can grant.

●What are your future goals as a researcher?

Furthering my knowledge and expertise in academia while engaging with private and public entities in the hope of working together toward common standards for trade and governance, especially in areas such as Artificial Intelligence.