Dr. Hakwan Lau
Contact
- Email: hakwan.lau@riken.jp
- Twitter: @hakwanlau
Academic Biography
- Co-Director (starting Sept 2024): Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, South Korea
- Professor (starting Sept 2024): Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
- Visiting PI (Sept 2024 - Mar 2025): RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Japan
- Team Leader (Jul 2021 - Aug 2024): RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Japan
- Professor (Summer 2018 - Summer 2021): Department of Psychology (Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience) & Brain Research Institute, UCLA
- Professor (Fall 2018 - Summer 2020): Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong (fixed-term)
- Principal Investigator (Apr 2018 - Summer 2020): State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hong Kong
- Associate Professor (Fall 2017 - Summer 2018): Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong
- Associate Professor (Summer 2014 - Summer 2018): Department of Psychology (Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience) & Brain Research Institute, UCLA
- Associate Professor (2012 - 2014): Department of Psychology, Columbia University (NYC)
- Visiting Adjunct Assistant Professor (2012 - 2013): Department of Psychology, UCLA
- Research Fellow (2010 onwards): Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Assistant Professor (Fall 2007 - Summer 2012): Department of Psychology, Columbia University (NYC)
- Visiting Fellow (Mar-Aug 2007): Unit 610, Hospital Salpetriere, Paris
- Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2004 - 2007): Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, London (Supervisor: RE Passingham)
- D.Phil in Experimental Psychology (2001 - 2005): University of Oxford
- Undergraduate Research/Teaching Assistant (2000 - 2001): Department of Philosophy, University of Hong Kong
- Bachelor of Cognitive Science (1998 - 2001): University of Hong Kong
Grants and Awards
- 2022: Telecommunication Prize (for the publication of “Unconscious Reinforcement Learning of Hidden Brain States Supported by Confidence”), ATR Institute International, Japan
- 2019-2021: Tom Slick Research Award, Mind Science Foundation, Co-PI, w/ PI Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel (total direct cost = $15,000)
- 2018-2023: Research Grant (R61/R33) from the National Institute of Mental Health (grant no. 1R61MH113772-01A1), “Treating Phobia with Multivoxel Neuro-Reinforcement”, PI (until 2021)
- 2017: J Arthur Woodward Graduate Mentor Award (UCLA)
- 2014-2019: Research Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Health (NINDS), “The Neural Basis of Metacognition”, PI w/ co-PI Steve Fleming (total direct cost = US$1,250,000)
- 2012: Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions by the Association for Psychological Science
- 2011-2014: Research Grant from Templeton Foundation “Arbitrating between philosophical theories of consciousness by cognitive neuroscience experiments”
For a complete list of grants and awards, please contact or refer to the lab’s website.
Former Mentees (Currently in Faculty / PI Positions)
- Guillermo Solovey, PhD: Former postdoc at Columbia, now tenured faculty member at the University of Buenos Aires
- Dobromir Rahnev, PhD: Former graduate student (Columbia), now tenured faculty at Department of Psychology, GeorgiaTech
- Megan Peters, PhD: Former postdoc at UCLA, now tenured faculty at UC Irvine
- Brian Odegaard, PhD: Former postdoc at UCLA, now assistant professor at U of Florida
- Ai Koizumi, PhD: Former postdoc, now independent PI at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Tokyo
- Matthias Michel, PhD: Assistant professor at MIT
- Taylor Webb, PhD: Assistant professor at Université de Montréal & MILA (to start in 2025)
- Li Yan McCurdy, PhD: To start as assistant professor at Yale Psychiatry in 2025 Jan
Publications and More Information
For publications, citation counts, and indexes, please see Dr. Hakwan Lau’s Google Scholar page.