Curriculum Vitae

Yang Yang

Ph.D. | Soft Robotics | Mechanical Science | Material Science

Dr. Yang Yang obtained his Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering (Soft Robotics) from Zhejiang University in 2022. Currently, he holds the position of Postdoctoral Fellow at the Electronic Engineering Department (EE) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Additionally, during 2021-2022, he served as a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Yang is interested in several areas of soft robotics, including creative soft robot designs, bioinspired soft robots, pneumatic soft robots (with a focus on combustion-actuated systems), and magnetic soft robots. He has extensive knowledge of mechanical sciences, which allows him to analyze the large deformation behaviors of flexible materials. Additionally, he has a keen interest in material sciences, specifically magnetically-induced elastomer-fluid phase transition materials. These perspectives are essential in gaining insights into soft robotics, such as actuation mechanisms, motion strategies, and geometric optimizations.

Education Experiences

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

| Postdoctoral Fellow

| Oct. 2022- present

Dr. Yang continued his navigation with Prof. Hongliang Ren as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Robotics, Perception and Artificial Intelligence (RPAI) Laboratory at CUHK. Dr. Yang’s research topic mainly focuses on functional nanomaterials for magnetic soft robots. He discovered a type of magnetically-induced reversible elastomer-fluid phase transition material that is of multi-functionalities for soft robots, such as self-healing, self-division, self-reshaping, self-reconfiguration, etc.

National University of Singapore (NUS)

| Visiting Scholar

| Apr. 2021 – Apr. 2022

Supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC), Dr. Yang served as a visiting scholar under Prof. Hongliang Ren’s supervision in the Medical Mechatronics Laboratory at NUS during the fourth year of his Ph.D. period. His research during this period was dedicated to exploring bioinspired soft robots and their potential biomedical engineering applications.

Zhejiang University (ZJU)

| Ph.D.

| Sep. 2017 – Sep. 2022

Dr. Yang started his academic journey in the Sediment and Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at ZJU. There was a distinguished supervisor committee to escort him, including Prof. Zhiguo He, an expert in fluid dynamics; Prof. Pengcheng Jiao, specializing in smart materials and structures; and Prof. Hongliang Ren, an expert in biomedical robotics. Under their supervision, Dr. Yang received comprehensive interdisciplinary training for his soft robotics studies, including multi-physics phenomenon modeling, smart structure designs, and robotic system development.