Jea (Jay) Kwon

Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy

Universitaetsstr. 140

44799 Bochum, Germany

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) in Bochum, Germany. My research focuses on brain-inspired machine intelligence, exploring how principles from neuroscience can inform the design of more capable and aligned AI systems.

I received my Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Engineering from Korea University, where I developed deep learning approaches for animal behavior analysis. Previously, I worked at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).

My current research interests span three themes: machine memory (memory-driven learning), machine behavior (human-like decision-making and AI alignment), and machine emotion (empathetic machines). I develop computational tools bridging neuroscience and AI, including SUBTLE for unsupervised behavior mapping and Lp-Convolution for brain-inspired visual processing.

news

Jan 22, 2026	Two papers accepted at ICLR 2026: “Bilinear Relational Structure Fixes Reversal Curse and Enables Consistent Model Editing” and “Erase or Hide? Suppressing Spurious Unlearning Neurons for Robust Unlearning.”
Nov 17, 2025	Our paper “Dropouts in Confidence: Moral Uncertainty in Human-LLM Alignment” has been accepted at AAAI 2026.
Jan 22, 2025	Our paper “Brain-inspired Lp-Convolution Benefits Large Kernels and Aligns Better with Visual Cortex” has been accepted at ICLR 2025.
Jan 01, 2024	Joined Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) as a Postdoctoral Researcher.
Sep 21, 2023	Our paper “Transformer as a Hippocampal Memory Consolidation Model Based on NMDAR-Inspired Nonlinearity” has been accepted at NeurIPS 2023.

selected publications

EMM

Cerebellar Tonic Inhibition Orchestrates the Maturation of Information Processing and Motor Coordination

Jea Kwon^*, Sunpil Kim^*, Junsung Woo, and 5 more authors

Experimental & Molecular Medicine, 2026

Bib

@article{kwon2026emm,
  title = {Cerebellar Tonic Inhibition Orchestrates the Maturation of Information Processing and Motor Coordination},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Kim, Sunpil and Woo, Junsung and Tanaka-Yamamoto, Keiko and James, Olivia and De Schutter, Erik and Hong, Sungho and Lee, C. Justin},
  journal = {Experimental \& Molecular Medicine},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.13290}
}

AAAI

Dropouts in Confidence: Moral Uncertainty in Human-LLM Alignment

Jea Kwon^*, Luiz Felipe Vecchietti, Sungjoon Park, and 1 more author

In AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2026

Bib

@inproceedings{kwon2026aaai,
  title = {Dropouts in Confidence: Moral Uncertainty in Human-LLM Alignment},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Vecchietti, Luiz Felipe and Park, Sungjoon and Cha, Meeyoung},
  booktitle = {AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  year = {2026},
}

ICLR

Brain-inspired Lp-Convolution Benefits Large Kernels and Aligns Better with Visual Cortex

Jea Kwon^*, SungJun Lim, Kyungwoo Song, and 1 more author

In International Conference on Learning Representations, 2025

Bib Code

@inproceedings{kwon2025iclr,
  title = {Brain-inspired Lp-Convolution Benefits Large Kernels and Aligns Better with Visual Cortex},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Lim, SungJun and Song, Kyungwoo and Lee, C. Justin},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Learning Representations},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=0LSAmFCc4p}
}

IJCV

SUBTLE: An Unsupervised Platform with Temporal Link Embedding that Maps Animal Behavior

Jea Kwon^*, Sunpil Kim, Dong-Kyum Kim, and 4 more authors

International Journal of Computer Vision, 2024

Bib Code

@article{kwon2024ijcv,
  title = {SUBTLE: An Unsupervised Platform with Temporal Link Embedding that Maps Animal Behavior},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Kim, Sunpil and Kim, Dong-Kyum and Joo, Jinhyeong and Kim, SoHyung and Cha, Meeyoung and Lee, C. Justin},
  journal = {International Journal of Computer Vision},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s11263-024-02072-0}
}

Exp. Neurobiol.

Egocentric 3D Skeleton Learning in a Deep Neural Network Encodes Obese-like Motion Representations

Jea Kwon^*, Moonsun Sa, Hyewon Kim, and 2 more authors

Experimental Neurobiology, 2024

Bib

@article{kwon2024expneurobiol,
  title = {Egocentric 3D Skeleton Learning in a Deep Neural Network Encodes Obese-like Motion Representations},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Sa, Moonsun and Kim, Hyewon and Seong, Yejin and Lee, C. Justin},
  journal = {Experimental Neurobiology},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5607/en24008}
}

NeurIPS

Transformer as a Hippocampal Memory Consolidation Model Based on NMDAR-Inspired Nonlinearity

Dong-Kyum Kim^*, Jea Kwon^*, Meeyoung Cha, and 1 more author

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2023

Bib

@inproceedings{kim2023neurips,
  title = {Transformer as a Hippocampal Memory Consolidation Model Based on NMDAR-Inspired Nonlinearity},
  author = {Kim, Dong-Kyum and Kwon, Jea and Cha, Meeyoung and Lee, C. Justin},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
  year = {2023},
  url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=vKpVJxplmB}
}

Mol. Brain

Retina-Attached Slice Recording Reveals Light-Triggered Tonic GABA Signaling in Suprachiasmatic Nucleus

Jea Kwon^*, Minwoo Wendy Jang, and C. Justin Lee

Molecular Brain, 2021

Bib

@article{kwon2021molbrain,
  title = {Retina-Attached Slice Recording Reveals Light-Triggered Tonic GABA Signaling in Suprachiasmatic Nucleus},
  author = {Kwon, Jea and Jang, Minwoo Wendy and Lee, C. Justin},
  journal = {Molecular Brain},
  year = {2021},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1186/s13041-021-00881-9}
}