Dr. Ningshi (Zoe) Yao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at George Mason University, where she directs the Control, Intelligent Autonomy, and Optimization (CIAO) Lab. She received her Ph.D. and MS degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her B.S. degree from Zhejiang University. Her research spans the convergence of control theory, robotics, machine learning, and human-robot interaction, with a primary focus on building intelligent systems that enhance human capabilities. Her work is supported by a significant portfolio of federal grants, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the leading Principal Investigator (PI). Dr. Yao is a recipient of the 2026 NSF CAREER Award from the Energy, Power, Control, and Learning (EPCL) program.

As an active scholar in the robotic and control community, Dr. Yao serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC): Systems, the IEEE American Control Conference (ACC), and the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). She is also on the Organizing Committee for IFAC NecSys 2025 and IEEE RO-MAN 2026. Beyond her research, Dr. Yao is the Founder of the Airborne Robotics Cup (ARC), a national robotic blimp competition for youth STEM education.