Assistant Professor

• Email: zli11@wpi.edu
  
• Office: 85 Prescott 223C
• Lab: 85 Prescott 224
• Tel: (508) 831-6351

Education

• Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz (CA, USA), 2014
• M.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Victoria (BC, Canada), 2009
• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, with minor in Computer Science, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China, 2006

Position Held

• 2017/01-present, Assistant Professor, Robotics Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• 2015/01-2016/05, Postdoctoral Associate, Duke University
• 2009/09-2014/12, Research/Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz
• 2012/06-2012/09, Software engineer, Polaris Wireless
• 2007/01-2009/04, Research/Teaching assistant, University of Victoria, BC, Canada

Research Interest

I am an Assistant Professor with the Robotics Engineering Department, with an affiliation in Department of Mechanical Engineering, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA) since 2017. My research aims to bridge the gap between human-robot interaction and human movement science. My current research focuses on the design of Human-Robot Interaction and Interfaces based on the behavior and preference in the Perception-Action Coupling of human motor control, for the applications on Tele-Nursing Robots. I have been collaborating closely with the faculty of the Nursing Department at Worcester State University, (Worcester, MA).

Recent Publications

• See here for a full list of publications
• 2021
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “How People Use Active Telepresence Cameras in Tele-manipulation”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021. PDF
  • Alexandra Valiton, Hannah Baez, Naomi Harrison, Justine Roy, and Zhi Li, “Active Telepresence Assistance for Supervisory Control: A User Study with a Multi-Camera Tele-Nursing Robot”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021. PDF
•  2020
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “Shared Autonomous Interface for Reducing Physical Effort in Robot Teleoperation via Human Motion Mapping“, in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2020. PDF
  • Alexandra Valiton and Zhi Li, “Perception-Action Coupling in Usage of Telepresence Cameras“,  in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),  pp. 3846-3852. IEEE, 2020,  Finalist of Best Paper for Human-Robot Interaction PDF
  • Samuel White, Keion Bisland, Michael Collins, and Zhi Li,  “Design of a High-level Teleoperation Interface Resilient to the Effects of Unreliable Robot Autonomy“, In 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 11519-11524, IEEE, 2020.
•  2019
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “Physical Fatigue Analysis of Assistive Robot Teleoperation via Whole-body Motion Mapping“, in 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 2240–2245, IEEE, 2019 PDF
  • Heramb Nemlekar, Dharini Dutia, Zhi Li, “Object Transfer Point Estimation for Fluent Human-Robot Handovers”, in 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 2627-2633. IEEE, 2019. PDF

Grants

• NSF Award#2024802 “Collaborative Research: NRI: INT: Transparent and Intuitive Teleoperation Interfaces for the Future Nursing Robots and Workers”, PI: Jane Li, Co-PI: Cagdas Onal, Jie Fu, Jeanine Skorinko and Yunus Telliel; $731,329, 2020/09/01-2023/08/31, in collaboration with the Nursing Department of Worcester State University. The three year continuing project is jointly funded by NSF and NIOSH/CDC. (see the CDC media release).
• NSF Award#1922761 “NRT-FW-HTF: Robotic Interfaces and Assistants for the Future of Work”, PI: Cagdas Onal, Co-PI: Jing Xiao, Zhi Li, Pratap Rao and Yunus Telliel; $2,999,998.00, 2019/09/01-2024/08/31.

Professional Service

• Associate Editor
  • International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2019, 2020, and 2021
  • Ubiquitous Robots (UR) 2019 and 2020
• Reviewer for Journal & Conference Proceedings
  • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and RA-Letter,
  • International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC)
  • International Conference on Intelligent Robots
  • Ubiquitous Robots
  • PLOS ONE

Invited talks & Presentations

• 2020/11/14, Invited talk at 12th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2020) workshop on “Safe Human-Robot Interaction: Sensing, Modeling, and Learning”
  • Title: Perception-Action Coupling and Nursing Robot Teleoperation Interfaces
• 2019/03/08, Invited talk at Brown University
• 2019/02/22, Invited talk at University of New Hampshire
• 2019/02/20, Invited talk at Worcester State University
  • Title: Tele-robotic intelligent nursing assistant
• 2017/06/02, Presentation at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2017, Singapore, 29 May-3 June, 2017
  • Title: A Study of Bidirectionally Telepresent Tele-Action During Robot-Mediated Handover
  • Title: Development of a Tele-Nursing Mobile Manipulator for Remote Care-giving in Quarantine Areas
• 2016/12/13, Presentation at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
  • Title: Toward Synergy of Human and Robotic Systems
• 2015/08, Presentation at IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)
  • Title: A Novel Method for Quantifying Arm Motion Similarity
• 2015/06, Presentation at Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), Human-Robot Handover Workshop
  • Predicting Object Transfer Position and Timing in Human-robot Handover Tasks
• 2009/08, Presentation at IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA)
  • Title: Comparison of Power- and Wave-based Control of Remote Dynamic Proxies for Networked Haptic Cooperation

Honor

• 2014/09-2014/12, Teaching assistant sabbatical, for outstanding TA service
• 2011, Mei Wang Fellowship for Women in Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
• AY 2009-2010, University of California, Regent Fellowship

Thanks-to

• Prof Jie Fu, (Control and Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, CIRL), Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Florida
• Prof agdas Onal (Soft Robotics Lab), Robotics Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Prof. Jeanine Skorinko and Yunus Telliel, Department of Social Science and Policy Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Prof. Mike Gennert and Cagdas Onal (Soft Robotics Lab), Robotics Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Paula Bylaska-Davies, Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, Worcester State University
• Postdoc advisor Prof Kris Hauser at UIUC Intelligent Motion Lab
• PhD advisor Prof Jacob Rosen at UCLA Bionics Lab
• Master advisor Prof Daniela Constantinescu at University of Victoria (BC, Canada)