Hakwan Lau is co-director of the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research and professor of biomedical engineering at Sungkyunkwan University. He is supported by the Institute for Basic Science in Korea. Previously he worked at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science; the University of California, Los Angeles; Columbia University and University College London. He obtained his D.Phil. in 2005 from Oxford University, and his undergraduate degree in 2001 from the University of Hong Kong, where he studied philosophy and cognitive science. He is the author of “In Consciousness We Trust,” an open-access academic monograph.

Hakwan Lau
Professor of biomedical engineering
Sungkyunkwan University
From this contributor

Premature declarations on animal consciousness hinder progress
Selected articles
- “Where is the ‘posterior hot zone’? Open review of Ferrante et al. (2023): “An adversarial collaboration to critically evaluate theories of consciousness” (by the ARC-Cogitate Consortium)” | PsyArXiv
- “Multivoxel pattern analysis reveals dissociations between subjective fear and its physiological correlates” | Molecular psychiatry
- “Should a few null findings falsify prefrontal theories of conscious perception?” | Journal of Neuroscience
- “Towards an unconscious neural reinforcement intervention for common fears” | PNAS
Explore more from The Transmitter
Astrocytes sense neuromodulators to orchestrate neuronal activity and shape behavior
Astrocytes serve as crucial mediators of neuromodulatory processes previously attributed to direct communication between neurons, four new studies show.

Astrocytes sense neuromodulators to orchestrate neuronal activity and shape behavior
Astrocytes serve as crucial mediators of neuromodulatory processes previously attributed to direct communication between neurons, four new studies show.
Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion
The issue with the supplementary figures likely does not change the conclusions of the paper, according to an outside expert.

Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion
The issue with the supplementary figures likely does not change the conclusions of the paper, according to an outside expert.
Building a climate neuroscience subfield: Q&A with Angie Michaiel
Michaiel, a program officer at the Kavli Foundation, shares what it took to cultivate research on the relationship between climate change and the nervous system.

Building a climate neuroscience subfield: Q&A with Angie Michaiel
Michaiel, a program officer at the Kavli Foundation, shares what it took to cultivate research on the relationship between climate change and the nervous system.