Education

2021                       PhD, Psychological and Behavioural Science

(expected)             London School of Economics and Political Science

                                Thesis title: Cultural evolutionary assembly of human minds

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2017                       MA, Psychology (Behavioral and Evolutionary Neuroscience)

                                Cornell University, US

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2013                       BSc with Greatest Honors, Psychology

                                University of Lethbridge, Canada

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2006                       Technical Diploma in Spatial Design

                                Kuwasawa Design School, Japan

Research positions

2021                       Research Fellow

(incoming)             National Institute of Education,

                                Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
                                and

                                Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition,
                                Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore

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2017                       Research programmer

                           Section of Brain Function Information,

                                National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan

Other employment

2003–2013            Freelance Japanese–English translator/editor for art and design     

                                publications (list of translated works below)

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2006–2007             Junior interior & furniture designer

                                Design Office IMA

                                Tokyo, Japan

Publications

Uchiyama R, Spicer R, & Muthukrishna M. (forthcoming). Cultural evolution of genetic heritability. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (target article) [PDF] [journal]

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Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. (2021). Cultural evolutionary neuroscience. In J Chiao, S Li, B Turner, SY Lee-Tauler, B Pringle (Eds.), Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience and Global Mental Health. Oxford University Press. [PsyArXiv]

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Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. (2019). Archetypes are a poor primitive for a theory of mental representations. Psychological Inquiry, 30. 87–92. [PDF]

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Smolla M, Invernizzi E, Bazhydai M, Casoli M, Deffner D, Faria GS, Jones N, Kanwal J, Staehler AM, Uchiyama R. (2018). Second annual workshop of the Association of Early-Career Social Learning Researchers in St Andrews, Scotland. Evolutionary Anthropology, 27, 184-187. [PDF]

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Finlay BL & Uchiyama R. (2017). The timing of brain maturation, early experience and the human social niche. In J. Kaas (Ed.), Evolution of Nervous Systems, 2nd Edition, Vol. 3, 123-148. San Diego: Elsevier Academic Press. [PDF]

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Finlay BL & Uchiyama R. (2015). Developmental mechanisms channeling cortical evolution. Trends in Neurosciences, 38, 69–76. [PDF]

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Pre-publication

Pham TQ, Yoshimoto T, Niwa H, Takahashi H, Uchiyama R, Matsui T, Anderson AK, Sadato N, & Chikazoe J. (under review). Vision-to-value transformations in artificial neural networks and human brains.

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Uchiyama R, Spicer R, & Muthukrishna M. (in preparation). Cultural tightness inflates genetic heritability: a cross-national analysis.

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Conference presentations

2019        Poster— Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. "The cultural evolution of cultural   

                   learning". Early-career Social Learning Researchers workshop (Lepizig, Germany)

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2018          Talk— Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. "General intelligence as an emergent  

                   product of cultural complexity: Explaining the Flynn Effect".

                   Cultural Evolution Society (Tempe, AZ, USA)

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2018          Poster— Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. "Testing the Cultural Brain  

                   Hypothesis using phylogenetic path analysis".

                   Early-career Social Learning Researchers workshop (St Andrews, Scotland, UK)

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2017          Talk— Uchiyama R & Muthukrishna M. "Testing the cultural brain hypothesis".  

                   Cultural Evolution Society inaugural conference (Jena, Germany)

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2016          Poster— Uchiyama R & Edelman S. "Narrative-mediated transmission of  

                   causal knowledge".

                   Emergent Meaning: Neural, Social, & Computational Perspectives (Bethlehem, PA),                    a workshop associated with Cognitive Science Society (Philadelphia, PA, US)
 

2015          Poster— Uchiyama R & Finlay BL. "Situating social learning in an evolutionarily 

                   conserved program of brain development".

                   Mechanisms of Learning in Social Contexts, a workshop at ICDL-EPIROB   

                   (Providence, RI, US)

Organization

2018–2020         LSE PBS PhD Committee member

                               Member of a PhD committee responsible for academic self-    

                               governance in the department of Psychological and Behavioural Science

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2015                      Cognitive and evolutionary approaches to human culture

                               Lead organizer and panel moderator of a cross-disciplinary symposium   

                               (March 12, 2015, at Cornell University) – http://cogevo.weebly.com/

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2014–2015            Collective Behavior Study Group, Cornell University

                               Co-founder and organizer of an inter-departmental graduate student     

                                journal club and speaker series – http://collectivebehavior.weebly.com/

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Teaching and outreach

Course Design

Co-designed with another graduate student the full syllabus for HD 6400–Emergent Collective Behavior, offered by the Department of Human Development, Cornell University (Spring 2014)

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Teaching Assistantships

• London School of Economics—

MSc Social and Public Communication (Martin Bauer & Bradley Franks, 2018–2020), Foundations of Psychological Science (Michael Muthukrishna, 2018–2019)
• Cornell University—

Developmental Psychology (Michael Goldstein, 2014)

Computational Psychology (Shimon Edelman, 2015)

Introduction to Biopsychology (Tim Devoogd, 2015)

Psychology of Language (Morten Christiansen, 2016)

Human Perception (David Field, 2016)

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Neuroanatomy instruction

Managed brain dissection wet labs and neuroanatomy tutorials for PSYCH4250–Cognitive Neuroscience (Barbara Finlay), Cornell University, 2014–2015

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Neuroscience outreach

2014–2016, Assistant Curator for the Wilder Brain Collection, Cornell University

         Sample coverage [ media ] [ youtube ] (Oct 7, 2016)

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Invited talks

2020                      盐 (Yan) Talk, Human Psychology Seminar Series
                               (online talk for an audience in the People’s Republic of China)

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2019                      Meiji University, School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences, Joe   

                               Wakano Lab (Japan)

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2019                      LSESU Behavioural Sciences Society Annual Conference (London)

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