I am an associate professor at the Institute of Computer Science of University of Tartu in my home country Estonia.

I am currently supervising 6 PhD students and 2 post-docs.

Research

I try to find and tackle fundamental problems at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. From my publications, you can see that I work in diverse fields from cellular-level neuroscience to consciousness, from artificial neural networks to virtual reality.  My group tries to combine insights from these different fields to gain a novel understanding of the human brain and to create novel AI tools.

Public engagement

Since 2012 I have been quite active in science communication. If you're fluent in Estonian then please check out my popular science book about the brain, a book about creativity, my latest book on the effects of social media and AI on thinking and three TEDx talks on consciousness, sleep, and creativity in education. 

Recent papers:

Wiradhany, W., Parry, D., & Aru, J. (2026). An effort recalibration framework for digital media use and cognition. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-10. 

Aru, J., Larkum, M. E., & Shine, J. M. (2023). The feasibility of artificial consciousness through the lens of neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences 

Suzuki, M., Pennartz, C. M., & Aru, J. (2023). How deep is the brain? The shallow brain hypothesis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 24(12), 778-791. 

Aru, J., Drüke, M., Pikamäe, J., & Larkum, M. E. (2023). Mental navigation and the neural mechanisms of insight. Trends in Neurosciences. 

Aru, J., Labash, A., Corcoll, O., & Vicente, R. (2023). Mind the gap: Challenges of deep learning approaches to Theory of Mind. Artificial Intelligence Review. 

Tulver, K., Kaup, K. K., Laukkonen, R., & Aru, J. (2023). Restructuring insight: An integrative review of insight in problem-solving, meditation, psychotherapy, delusions and psychedelics. Consciousness and Cognition. 

Aru, J., Suzuki, M., & Larkum, M. E. (2020). Cellular Mechanisms of Conscious Processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

How I got here? 

I did my PhD with Lucia Melloni and Wolf Singer at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. I studied consciousness and neural oscillations. After that, in 2014 I returned to Estonia to work with artificial intelligence and supervised projects on virtual reality. In 2018, I obtained the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship to do a post-doc with Matthew Larkum in Berlin. Since 2020 I'm back in my home country Estonia.