The Control, Intelligent Autonomy/Robots and Optimization Research Lab consists of both undergraduate and graduate students in electrical engineering and robotics under the supervision of Dr. Ningshi Yao in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, affiliated with Bio-engineering Department, at the George Mason University.
The research areas our group is actively engaged with are control theory, real-time scheduling, human-robot interaction/teaming, mixed integer optimization for resource allocation, bio-inspired robotics and autonomy, machine learning, and cyber-physical human systems.
Dr. Ningshi Yao is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, affiliated with Bio-engineering Department, at George Mason University. She received her PhD from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020, and the BS in Automatic Control from Zhejiang University, China, in 2014. Prior to joining Mason, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology from November 2020 to July 2021. Her research interests include real-time scheduling, control theory, cyber-physical systems, machine learning and human-robot interaction.
Dr. Yao received a $750k grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to establish a hands-on mechatronics training program aimed at building the next generation of high-tech engineering technologists. The three-year funding will support Read more…
We are proud to announce that Dr. Ningshi Yao, Director of the CIAO Lab, has been appointed as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (TSMCS): Systems. IEEE TSMCS is Read more…
Dr. Yao joined the organizing committee and serve as the Special Session Chair for the 35th IEEE RO-MAN 2026! She will also serve as an Associate Editor for RO-MAN2026. The conference will take place in Read more…
Dr. Yao has been invited to speak at Purdue University’s ICON (Institute for Control, Optimization, and Networks) Weekly Seminar on Sep 26. Title: Dynamics and Control of Lighter-Than-Air Autonomous Blimps: Design, Development, and DeploymentDate/Time: Friday, Read more…
Dr. Ningshi Yao will be giving a seminar at the University of Notre Dame. Looking forward to sharing our work on contention resolving MPC and discussing its applications in cyber-physical-human systems, from networked control to Read more…
Ciao Lab, led by Dr. Ningshi Yao, successfully launched the Airborne Robotics Cup (ARCup) in Gaithersburg, Md on August 17, 2025. ARCup is a hands-on robotics and AI competition featuring miniature robotic blimps designed and Read more…
Rm 166, Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC), Research Hall
001 York River Rd, Fairfax, VA, 22030
Email: nyao4 at gmu dot edu