About

Dr. Hao Zhang

Hao Zhang is an Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst). He is a roboticist and the director of the Human-Centered Robotics Laboratory (HCRLab) at UMass, which conducts research in lifelong collaborative autonomy, robot adaptation and learning, and human-robot teaming. Dr. Zhang is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award for his work on robot reflection in lifelong adaptation. He is also the recipient of a DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) and a DARPA Director's Fellowship for his research on Autonomous Group Introspective Learning and coopEtition (AGILE) for cross-capability multi-robot adaptation. Dr. Zhang is directing the Program for Robotics Outreach on Gender and Racial Equity in School and Society (PROGRESS) at UMass Amherst.

Research

Dr. Zhang focuses on innovative theoretical and applied research on lifelong collaborative autonomy, with the goal of enabling intelligent robots to collaborate with robotic and human teammates and to operate over long periods of time. His research lies at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), with specific topics focusing on robot adaptation/learning and human-robot/swarm teaming in unstructured, novel, and adversarial environments. His research has been deployed in a variety of real-world applications, such as manufacturing, connected autonomous driving, homeland security, and robot-assisted inspection and repair, which has led to new robotics solutions with solid algorithmic foundations to address environmental, social and economic issues.

Dr. Zhang has published extensively in robotics and AI areas, and received international recognition in the form of best paper awards and nominations from Robotics Science and Systems (RSS), IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), and IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). He has also served as an associate editor of RA-L and on organizing and/or program committees of top-tier robotics and AI conferences such as CoRL, RSS, ICRA, IROS, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, and AAAI.

Sponsors of Dr. Zhang's research have included the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Army Research Office (ARO), United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Transportation (DOT), Toyota Motor North America, and DCP Midstream.

Selected Recent Publications

Full publication list locates at HCRLab's Complete Publication page.

Robot Adaptation

Collaborative Perception

Multi-Robot Teaming

Human-Robot Collaboration

Teaching

Professional Activities

Contact Information

Office: LGRC A357
E-mail: hao.zhang AT cs.umass.edu
HCRLab: https://hcr.cs.umass.edu
Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences
University of Massachusetts Amherst
740 N Pleasant St, Amherst, MA 01003