Kenji Doya

Timeline

1. 1991–1994

   From a Tokyo PhD to ATR

   He earns a PhD in engineering at the University of Tokyo in 1991 and does research in neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute. In 1994, he joins Advanced Telecommunications Research International (ATR) as a senior researcher and serves as a group leader of the Kawato Dynamic Brain Project. At ATR in Kyoto, he works on autonomous learning robots and the neural mechanisms of learning.

2. 1996–1999

   Learning algorithms of the brain

   In 1996, his paper "Temporal difference learning in continuous time and space" appears in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 8. His 1999 Neural Networks paper on the computations of the cerebellum, the basal ganglia and the cerebral cortex assigns supervised learning to the cerebellum, reinforcement learning to the basal ganglia and unsupervised learning to the cerebral cortex. Metalearning, his theory built on that work, describes how neurotransmitters facilitate distributed learning mechanisms in the basal ganglia.

3. 2004

   Starting the Okinawa neuroscience course

   In 2004, he is appointed a Principal Investigator of the OIST Initial Research Project, joining the first group of researchers in the institute's preparatory research projects. He starts the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course (OCNC) as chief organizer.

4. 2008–2021

   Journal editor and OIST professor

   From 2008 to 2021, he is Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Neural Networks. When OIST becomes a graduate university in 2011, he becomes a Professor, and he serves as Vice Provost for Research until 2014.

5. 2018–2019

   Hebb Award and society prizes

   In 2018, the International Neural Network Society gives him its Donald O. Hebb Award for his lifetime contribution to the field of neural networks, presented at the World Congress on Computational Intelligence 2018 in Rio de Janeiro. In 2019, he receives the JNNS Academic Award and the APNNS Outstanding Achievement Award.

6. 2023–2025

   Society president and conference chair

   He serves as President of the Japanese Neural Network Society (JNNS) from 2023 to 2024. In 2025, he is a General Chair of ICONIP 2025, held at OIST in Okinawa, together with Maryam Doborjeh of Auckland University of Technology.

7. 2026

   The Tateishi Special Prize

   In 2026, the Tateishi Science and Technology Foundation selects him for its 9th Tateishi Special Prize. The foundation cites his work on reinforcement learning theory, its use for understanding how the brain learns, and his part in establishing a major international research hub at OIST.

8. As of October 2026

   Professor of Neural Computation

   He is Professor of the Neural Computation Unit at OIST, where he studies reinforcement learning and probabilistic inference and how the brain realizes them. At CCN 2026, he is the keynote speaker, with the lecture "Neural circuits for prediction and action".