Psych professor deciphering human faces for defense dept.

While Chinese majors decipher complex Mandarin characters and computer science scholars puzzle their way through data structures, Dr. David Matsumoto tries to decode the human face.

Matsumoto, a professor at SF State, and his research team in the psychology department received $1.9 million last December from the Department of Defense's Minerva Research Initiative to study emotion and intergroup relationships over a period of five years.

The professor is one of seven recipients of the award, selected among 211 applicants.

"This is a huge project with a lot of media exposure," said the professor, researcher, sixth-degree judo black belt and doctor of psychology. "I work morning to night every day."

The doctor and his research team are analyzing the metaphors of ideological speakers, coding their facial features and stimulating groups of volunteers to feel different emotions -- a project they have been working on for several years now.

He will also be aiding graduate students with their master's theses, advising visiting scholars, studying different cultural facial expressions and working on as many as 30 other research projects.

Matsumoto attributes his success to the people he works with and the self-discipline he learned from judo.

"I'm just the tip of the iceberg of this huge machine [of researchers]," he said.

One part of that machine is Katherine Sorensen. Although she gradated from SF State in May, she still hung around Matsumoto's lab and now has a full-time position assisting with the Minerva Project research.

Sorenson said people just can't help but work for Matsumoto. "He's a really great person to work for," Sorensen said. "Once you volunteer, there are all kinds of things you can do for him."

Joanna Chung, a graduate student working at Matsumoto's lab, attributes the warm family atmosphere of the lab partly to his sense of humor and his emotional support.

"Being his student, advisee and working for him, I have seen him in many different ways," said Chung, who is finishing her master's degree in psychology.

She added that he is "really good at not expressing his emotions on his face," and would try to crack students and colleagues up by "showing you a disgusted face while talking to you."

Chung added that Matsumoto is very supportive to those who work for him. "He's very much a teacher," she said. "He encourages you to do things."

Matsumoto has been studying judo for over 40 years and said he can't imagine his life without it.

He hits the mat four to five times a week, a far cry from the little boy who hated going to judo lessons.

"The joy came when I got better," he said. "It's no fun getting your butt kicked; when you start kicking butt, it's funnier."

In addition to his research and teaching work, Matsumoto teaches advanced competition classes at East Bay Judo Institute, where he is head instructor.