A diverse team at the forefront of academic research.

We're a growing team of trans-disciplinary researchers, academics, and engineers coming together in pursuit of a theory of intelligence.
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LEADERSHIP

Olaf Witkowski, PhD

Olaf Witkowski, PhD

Director of Research

Olaf co-founded ventures in science and technology on three continents. Expert in machine intelligence, cognitive science, and artificial life, he has conducted research at the University of Tokyo, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was elected Vice President of the International Society for Artificial Life and co-founded Artificial Life Japan in 2021. He leads research activities at Cross Labs, and is an Executive Officer at Cross Compass.

Antoine Pasquali, PhD

Antoine Pasquali, PhD

Research Advisor

Doctor of cognitive neuroscience and an expert in engineering and automatic control sciences, Antoine has 20 years of experience in deep learning in developmental and industrial robotics, manufacturing, food industry, finance, psychophysics and brain imaging. He currently leads the development of technological innovations at Cross Compass as Board Director and Chief Technology Officer.

Katsunobu Suzuki

Katsunobu Suzuki

CEO

Katsunobu brings his unique experience in the development of semiconductor chips for industrial applications, having been the first to introduce AI into factory edge devices in Japan with NEC (now Renesas Electronics). Katsunobu graduated from Yokohama City University. As Chief Executive Officer of Cross Compass Ltd., he manages the company's strategy to bridge between cutting-edge research and AI technology at the service of humanity.

Alyssa Adams, PhD

Alyssa Adams, PhD

Deputy Director

Alyssa's goal is to develop a new understanding of living systems – one that embraces the subjectivity of emergent observers and new, unexpected functionality – so that we might see intelligence, evolution, and emergence through the same lens.

TEAM MEMBERS

Martin Biehl, PhD, Senior Research Scientist

Martin Biehl, PhD

Senior Research Scientist

Martin's expertise is in Bayesian agents and information theory, focusing on foundations of individuality, goal-directedness and imagination/deliberation inside dynamical systems. He obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

Nicholas Guttenberg, PhD, External Member

Nicholas Guttenberg, PhD

Senior Research Scientist

With a background in computational condensed matter physics and specializing in scaling and the emergence of patterns in complex systems and abstract chemistries with an emphasis on Origins of Life questions, Nicholas is currently developing methods for multi-agent artificial intelligence informed by ideas from physics and complex systems.

Mahdi Khosravy, PhD, Senior Research Scientist

Mahdi Khosravy, PhD

Senior Research Scientist

Mahdi is an expert in interdisciplinary intelligent systems, with over a hundred books, book chapters, journal publications, presentations, and technical reports. He has established strong international collaborations with universities and the industry in Europe, USA, Brazil, India, and Japan. His recent work revolves around GANs, model inversion attacks, deep face recognition, and evolutionary optimization.

Keisuke Suzuki

Keisuke Suzuki

Senior Research Scientist

Keisuke's key research focus is conscious presence; i.e. the subjective feeling of being "here and now". His approach builds on state-of-the-art virtual reality to experimentally manipulate the bodily and mental states of mind, which is complimented by theoretical modeling. Keisuke is a specially appointed lecturer at the Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Neuroscience (CHAIN) in Hokkaido University, Japan.

Luc Caspar, PhD

Luc Caspar, PhD

Research Scientist

Luc holds a PhD in Affective Science and Machine Learning from the University of Sheffield were his focus was on emotions and their role in the decision-making process. Since joining Cross Labs, Luc's focus has shifted from understanding affect to using the concept for studying the possibility of communication through games.

Javi Fernandez, Research Assistant

Javi Fernandez

Research Scientist

Javier holds a Degree in Industrial Engineering and double Master's Degree from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Keio University. Javier’s current focus is Affective Computing, Artificial Life, and Artificial Intelligence.

Tanner Lund

Tanner Lund

Research Scientist

Tanner is a doctoral student at The University of Tokyo and a software industry professional of 8+ years. Among his interests are complex heterogeneous multi-agent systems, risk, uncertainty, music, communication, the features of life and artifice, and most fundamentally: learning.

Lisa Soros, PhD, Research Scientist

Lisa Soros, PhD

Research Scientist

Lisa's interests span from artificial life to video game AI, and generative design. Lisa's research focuses primarily on theory and application of evolutionary algorithms, specifically focusing on open-ended evolution and open-endedness in general.

Oneris Rico, PhD, Research Assistant

Oneris Rico, PhD

Research Assistant

Oneris contributes to Cross Labs research with his expertise in video content production and cinematography. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Keio in media design.

Grant Cheng

Grant Cheng

Research Assistant

Grant is studying computer science at the University of California, San Diego with interests in generative AI and reinforcement learning. He enjoys learning about new topics and is currently interested in applications of transformers, self-attention models, and residual neural networks.

Peter Nguyen

Peter Nguyen

Research Assistant

Peter studies computer science at University of California, Los Angeles. His interests lie in applications of machine learning in computer vision and biology. He is also interested in exploring how to make large scale machine learning more efficient.

Peter Rood

Peter Rood

Research Assistant

Peter holds degrees in philosophy and media studies. He has 10+ years of experience working in the tech industry. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is interested in artificial life, complex systems, and open-endedness.

Jean Alfonso-Decena

Jean Alfonso-Decena

Executive Assistant to the Director

Jean co-founded tech startups in Japan and the Philippines and led a Google award-winning conversational AI fintech company in Berkeley. Jean is currently an AI consultant for global tech and academic institutions, and the founder of a spirit-tech startup helping humans evolve to radical consciousness.

Oliver Wang

Oliver Wang

Research Assistant

Oliver’s interests lie in robotics, evolutionary life, and using machine learning to process real world signals. His work with Cross Labs revolves around applications of language models on task-planning and interaction with the world.

William Yang

William Yang

Research Assistant

William studies neuroscience and machine learning at Cambridge University, and his main research focus is in the intersection between these two fields (NeuroAI). William is also interested in collective intelligence, cognitive robotics and AI alignment principles inspired by Buddhism.

Steven Weigh

Designer Advisor

Steven is leading a talented team of designers designing the next generation of  Toyota's next generation of autonomous driving technologies. Steven is passionate about human-machine interactions, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and how design and emerging technology can enhance quality of life for us all.

EXTERNAL MEMBERS

Nathanael Aubert-Kato, PhD, Research Assistant

Nathanael Aubert-Kato, PhD

External Member

Nathanael is a lecturer at the Ochanomizu University, Japan,  and received his PhD in Information Sciences and Technology from the University of Tokyo. Nathanael's research interests cover molecular robotics, evolutionary optimization algorithms, and Alife.

Federico Da Rold, PhD

Federico Da Rold, PhD

External Member

Federico holds a Degree in Philosophy from the University of Bologna and a PhD in Computer Science from Plymouth University. Currently, he is a JSPS Fellow at Ochanomizu University where his research focus is neural networks and evolutionary optimization.

Praful Gagrani, PhD

Praful Gagrani, PhD

External Member

A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison in the Origins of Life group, where he also received his Ph.D. in Physics, Praful has a master’s in physics with a specialization in cosmology from Kansas State University. Praful's research focus is on the application of mathematics and mathematical physics towards building specific techniques for understanding various aspects of complex systems.

Eliott Jacobin, PhD

Eliott Jacopin, PhD

External Member

Eliott holds a Ph.D. in systems biology from Osaka University. He is interested in characterizing living systems and investigates the subject from the angle of both formal frameworks and simulations.

Hector Zenil, PhD

Hector Zenil, PhD

External Member

Hector leads the Algorithmic Dynamics Lab at the Karolinska Institute, and is a Senior Researcher at the Alan Turing Institute at the British Library in London. Hector has published over 120 papers and several books, including "A Computable Universe" and "Algorithmic Information Dynamics."


Kevin Frans, External Member

Kevin Frans

External Member

Kevin's background is in generative modeling and reinforcement learning. Kevin is a member of the Embodied Intelligence group at MIT, and deeply interested in the intersection between modern deep learning and artificial life, such as open-endedness, AI-assisted art, and emergently intelligent agents.

Sina Khajehabdollahi, External Member

Sina Khajehabdollahi

External Member

Sina's background is in Physics and his current interest is in the intersection between complex systems, machine learning, computational neuroscience and self-organizing systems. Sina's current research investigates evolving self-organizing plastic neural networks and open-ended evolution.

Samuel Kiegeland, Intern

Samuel Kiegeland

External Member

A Computer Science graduate student at ETH Zürich, Samuel is focused on theoretical computer science and machine intelligence and the mathematical abilities of large language models, from basic arithmetic to complex math word problems.

Christopher Senn, Research Assistant

Christopher Senn

External Member

Christopher is a doctoral student in information and communications engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Christopher's research focus is robust predictions in non-linear dynamical systems based on reservoir computing.

Byran You, External Member

Byran You

External Member

A student at the University of Tokyo Byran is currently researching the possibilities and implementation of open-ended agents within games focusing specifically on reinforcement-learning based implementations of agent design and behavior within Minecraft.

ADVISORS

Prof. Takashi Ikegami, Advisor

Prof. Takashi Ikegami

Professor, University of Tokyo

Professor at the Department of General System Studies, at the University of Tokyo Prof. Ikegami’s work encompasses both the arts and sciences, with a focus on complex systems and Artificial Life, a field which aims to build a possible form of life using computer simulations, chemical experiments and robots.

Prof. Mizuki Oka, Advisor

Prof. Mizuki Oka

Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba

Associate Professor at University of Tsukuba. Prof. Oka leads the Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence and is Technical Advisor of Blank Space Co., Ltd. Specializing in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Data Analysis and Utilization, Prof. Oka is the author of several books including 'Building and Running ALife – An Introduction to Artificial Life Theory Through Implementation'.

Prof. Daniel Polani, Advisor

Prof. Daniel Polani

Director, Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research

Daniel Polani is a professor of Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research, and Head of the Adaptive Systems Research Group, and leader of the SEPIA Lab at the University of Hertfordshire.

Prof. Hiroki Sayama, Advisor

Prof. Hiroki Sayama

Director, Center for Collective Dynamics of Complex Systems

Professor at Binghamton University, Hiroki Sayama is a researcher who has an extensive experience in teaching and research on complex systems science and engineering, network science, computational social science, mathematical modeling and simulation, artificial life/chemistry, and computer and information sciences.

ALUMNI

Kaan Akinci

Mercari

Payton Bechefsky

UCLA

Grant Cheng

UCLA

Chris Hoang

NYU

Samuel Kiegeland

ETH Zürich

Sina Khajehabdollahi

Max Planck Institute

John Kong

University of Queensland

Jadon Nguyen

UCLA

Peter Nguyen

UCLA

Pranav Pudu

University of Texas

Gueren Sanford

Texas Tech University

Christopher Senn

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Elena Tapia

IBM, Zurich

Oliver Wang

UCLA

William Yang

Cambridge University

Byran You

University of Tokyo

FRIENDS & COMMUNITY

Claus Aranha

University of Tsukuba

Douglas Blackiston

Tufts University

Bert Chan

Independent Researcher

Wesley Chan

Monash University

Axel Cleeremans

Université Libre de Bruxelles

Antoine Cully

Imperial College London

Aleksandr Drozd

RIKEN CCS

Bill Duane

Former Google Executive

Chrisantha Fernando

DeepMind

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga

eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies

Rudolf Füchslin

Zurich University

Mario Galarreta

Stanford University

Neeraj Gupta

Oakland University

David Ha

Google Brain

Takuya Ibaraki

Neuro Innovation Unit, NTT

Hiroyuki Iizuka

Hokkaido University

Ryota Kanai

Araya

Sam Kriegman

Harvard University

Joel Lehman

Carper.ai

Grace Lindsay

University College London

Michael Muthukrishna

London School of Economics

Yukie Nagai

University of Tokyo

Anh-Thu (Kayde) Nguyen

Ritsumeikan University

Stefanos Nikolaidis

University of Southern California

Geoff Nitschke

University of Cape Town

Ken Regan

University at Buffalo

Sebastian Risi

IT University of Copenhagen

Lana Sinapayen

Sony CSL

Liza Solomonova

McGill University

Michael Spranger

Sony AI

Keisuke Suzuki

University of Sussex

Eric Schwitzgebel

University of California

Tim Taylor

Monash University

Julian Togelius

New York University

OUR ACADEMIC PARTNERS

In partnership with the world’s leading academic institutions