@kenjiitao
Postdoc at RIKEN (Japan), exploring human history with evolutionary models. Focus: universal anthropology, cultural evolution, statistical physics, and complex systems theory. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yKxFW-IAAAAJ&hl=en
๐จ ACE Seminar
Weโre excited to host Dr. VPS Ritwika in our upcoming ACE Seminar!
๐ Tuesday, Mar 17, 2026
๐ 7:00 PM JST (UTC+9)
๐ป Online via Zoom
๐ To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
There are two application rounds each year. The fellowship offers a competitive salary/allowance, and the recent success rates are around ~10% for each round. I can also advise on research plans and proposal writing.
From Apr 1, 2026, Iโll launch my own lab at Tohoku University as an Assistant Professor!
Iโm happy to host applicants for the JSPS International Postdoc Fellowships.
If youโre interested in mathematical models of human history, feel free to DM me!
๐จ ACE Seminar
Weโre excited to host Dr. Christopher Kavanagh in our upcoming ACE Seminar!
๐ Tuesday, Jan 27, 2026
๐ 7:00 PM JST (UTC+9)
๐ป Online via Zoom
๐ To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
ใ๐จACE Seminar Alert๐จใWe're excited to have Dr Quentin Atkinson at University of Auckland on Tuesday 18 Nov. at 7pm in Tokyo (6pm in Singapore/11am in Berlin)!
You can sign up for the mailing list to get the zoom link by sending a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
๐ACE Seminar:
Weโre thrilled to welcome Dr. Siyang Luo from Sun Yat-sen University!
๐ Mon, Sep 22 at 7:00 PM JST (18:00 (Perth/Singapore/Beijing), 19:00 (Tokyo/Seoul), 20:00 (Sydney))
โ๏ธ To receive the Zoom link, send a blank email to: ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
(iii) moderate diversity within groups adds flexibility to collective dynamics, improving efficiency, equity, and robustness, and
(iv) while management burden grows exponentially with group size, allowing gradual population growth shifts this scaling from exponential to a power law.
We argue that (i) the simple principle โwait when rich, harvest when below averageโ enables sustainability and punishes selfish cheaters,
(ii) labor division among turn-taking clusters spontaneously emerge,
We extend our evolutionary dynamical-systems game theory to multi-player settings.
In our model, each playerโs harvesting decisions shape resource dynamics and depend on the resource state, the player's wealth, and the group-average wealth. Evolution of decision-making functions is simulated.
Our latest paper is on arXiv!
How can robust collective resource governance emerge without costly individual monitoring?
We theoretically demonstrate the self-organization of institutions relying only on monitoring of group-average resource use.
๐ arxiv.org/abs/2507.225...
Title: Motorโenvironment exploration in the human developmental niche Absract: In real behavioral ecologies, adaptive learning requires simultaneous exploration of both motor control and environmental task structure ("world model"), each presenting its own form of open-ended search complexity. We know much about each of these learning domains, but relatively little about their joint exploration space. I propose that this dual motorโenvironment exploration is crucial for understanding the human evolutionary niche. Human agency prolifically shapes environments that in turn shape our learning trajectories, presumably yielding a reciprocal (niche-constructive) feedback loop that couples mental structures to environmental structures and vice versa. Dual motorโenvironment exploration helps illuminate the exploreโexploit landscape of this deeply collective, near-eusocial epigenetic milieu. It also offers unique computational and teleological perspectives on phenomena like cultural learning, social cognition, and behavioral creativity โ complementing the population-level stochastic mechanisms proposed by cultural evolutionary theories.
ใ๐จACE Seminar Alert๐จใWe're excited to have Dr Ryutaro @uchiyama.bsky.social joining from Singapore on Tuesday 29th July at 7pm in Tokyo (6pm in Singapore/12am in Berlin)!
You can sign up for the mailing list to get the zoom link by sending a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
The 4th Asian Cultural Evolution Seminar is coming soon on 20 May!
Sign up for the mailing list to get the zoom link, by sending a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Excited to share our latest paper published in PNAS!
We introduced a new theoretical framework, "evolutionary dynamical-systems game theory," to explain how rules for sustainable resource use self-organize.
๐ www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Our simulations show how communities spontaneously evolve norms to distinguish cooperative from defective actions, along with mechanisms to punish norm violators. This reveals the spontaneous formation of effective institutions from the bottom-up.
Traditionally, game theory has fixed strategies and payoffs. Our approach instead describes these as functions, changing dynamically based on environmental and players' states, enabling modeling of evolving institutions.
Our framework extends traditional game theory by incorporating dynamical-systems perspectives in two key ways:
1๏ธโฃ Playersโ actions affect environmental conditions dynamically.
2๏ธโฃ Playersโ strategies evolve as โdecision-making functions.โ
To broadly realize sustainable resource use, we must understand the mechanisms behind the emergence and sustainability of institutions. This question motivated us to develop the evolutionary dynamical-systems game theory.
Field studies have reported cases where communities spontaneously develop institutions to sustainably manage resources. However, there are also cases where the absence or failure of institutions leads to the tragedy of the commons.
Sustainable use of common-pool resources requires cooperation, meaning individuals must use resources within appropriate limits. To achieve this, communities need "institutions"โnorms defining cooperation and sanctions for violators.
Excited to share our latest paper published in PNAS!
We introduced a new theoretical framework, "evolutionary dynamical-systems game theory," to explain how rules for sustainable resource use self-organize.
๐ www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...