NJIT Professor Awarded the IEICE Human Communication Award

Taro Narahara, associate professor in the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, has received the 2020 Human Communication Award from the Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers (IEICE) Japan for his paper "What is the Key to Attract People in Apartments?: Construction and Analysis of Attractiveness Dataset for Real Estate Floor Plans," co-authored with Xueting Wang and Toshihiko Yamasaki at the University of Tokyo. Narahara is the first author and presented the paper at one of the IEICE conferences.

Narahara was last year's recipient of the 2019 Media Experience and Virtual Environment  (MVE) Award, for the best paper presented at the Technical Committee on MVE. The Human Communication Award is a high honor as it is awarded annually for the best overall contributions to the field among winners from all other related IEICE conferences in human communication areas throughout the year. 

IEICE is Japan's largest international academic society in the fields of electronics, information and communications, similar to the focus areas within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) here in the U.S. and other countries. Narahara will be awarded at the IEICE's Human Communication Group Symposium 2020 in December. 

Narahara also gave a keynote address on the topic of a data-driven approach to architecture at a symposium organized by the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) titled "New Development of VR / MR Technology in the Field of Architecture and Urban Design."