Hao Zhang

Interests

Robotics, lifelong autonomy, human-robot teaming, and robot learning and adaptation.

Research

Professor Zhang's research focuses on lifelong collaborative autonomy, with the goals to enable intelligent robots to operate over long periods of time and naturally collaborate with humans and adaptively work with other robots as teammates. His research specifically addresses introspective adaptation, context-aware navigation, multirobot collaboration, and peer-to-peer human-robot teaming in unstructured, dynamic, novel, and potentially adversarial environments. Professor Zhang is also interested in interdisciplinary research to develop fundamentally new concepts and systems that can be demonstrated on real robots in real-world applications, such as manufacturing, connected autonomous driving, robot-assisted inspection and repair, environment exploration and monitoring, and internet of robotic things. Broadly, Professor Zhang's expertise lies at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Biography

Professor Zhang is an Associate Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst, where he directs the Human-Centered Robotics Laboratory. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor (2014-2020) and Associate Professor (2020-2022) of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Professor Zhang received his PhD from the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2014, an MS from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, and a BS from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2006.

Activities & Awards

Professor Zhang is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) that recognized his contributions to human-inspired and human-integrated robot adaptation. While in his position at the Colorado School of Mines, he also received the Excellence in Research Awards. Professor Zhang publishes at top robotics conferences and journals, and has received multiple best paper nominations and awards. He also regularly serves as an area chair, associate editor, or reviewer for RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, IJRR, TRO, and RA-L.