Faculty Member

Dr. Ningshi Yao

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.

Graduate Students

Yidi Huang

PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, since Spring 2022

Bio: Yidi Huang obtained his master degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Florida (UF) in 2021 and his bachelor degree from Henan University of Science and Technology, China, in 2018. Before joining GMU, Previously, Yidi worked at General Electric Company as an internship for product software design.

Yidi has profound experience of 3D model building, data and image processing, and deep learning study. He has strong interest in researching deep neural network structure and computer vision. There are also some research that he worked previously about pattern recognition and natural language processing. His current research focuses on exploring binocular vision fusion to mimic human perception using artificial muscle-driven robotic eyes. 

Renke Wang

PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, since Fall 2022

Bio: Renke Wang obtained her Master’s degree in Control Science and Engineering from Dalian University of Technology, China, in 2020, and her Bachelor’s degree in Automation from Dalian University of Technology, China, in 2017. event-triggered control, etc.

Renke’s previous research focused on stability analysis and control synthesis of control systems, which involved positive systems, switched systems, and Markov jump linear systems. The approaches utilized include dwell time, state-dependent switching, event-triggered control, etc. She is currently on exploring transformative approaches to design optimal schedules and controls for resource-constrained cyber physical systems.

Rajul Kumar

PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, since Fall 2023

Bio: Rajul obtained his Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from Delhi Technological University (formally Delhi College of Engineering) in 2021. Before joining GMU, Rajul worked as a Research Associate at Robotics center of Plaksha University on image processing via deep learning & drone based agricultural field remote sensing.

Rajul also has past industrial experience of working on collaborative robotic arm motion planning & obstacle avoidance as a GET in Mobile Robotics R&D department of Addverb Technologies Pvt. Ltd. during 2021-2022 Aug.  His past research work also includes designing a wide range of control strategies like adaptive, fractional order and AI based intelligent control for aerial vehicles. His broad interest is in Bio-mimetic robots, Human-robot interaction and medical robotics.

Ahnaf Asif Khan

PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, since Fall 2024

Bio: Ahnaf obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh, in 2021. Before joining GMU, he worked as a software engineer at Enosis Solutions for 3 years.

Ahnaf’s previous research works focused on electric and autonomous vehicles, particularly the scheduling and distribution of EV batteries through decentralized clusters. His past works include applications of modified graph and scheduling algorithms, and models like Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to process images for the control of autonomous vehicles. His broader research interests lie in finding and implementing efficient schedules and controls of resources in real-time systems.

Yojan Gautam

PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, since Fall 2025

Bio: Yojan received his Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering from George Mason University. He has been working on the robotic blimps research since the beginning of Spring 2023. His research interests include online learning-based system modeling and parameter identification, learning-based control, and hardware+software designs for light-than-air vehicles.

Undergraduate Students

Kabir Singh Jolly

Undergrad student, Computer Science, GMU, since Fall 2021

Bio: Kabir Jolly is a determined undergraduate at George Mason University pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. During his time at Mason, he interned at Arc XP – The Washington Post and SNO Consulting, where he improved application security through automation and earned his AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification.

Upon joining the team, Kabir enthusiastically undertook the responsibility of creating datasets for the team’s autonomous agents and now hopes to further his contributions to the field of AI through his passion for programming.

Alumni

Dr. Sunil Kumar Rajendran

PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, GMU, Graduated in Fall 2022

Bio: Dr. Sunil Kumar Rajendran holds Doctoral and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering specializing in Controls and Robotics from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Anna University, India. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University. His research interests include, but are not limited to, bio-inspired and soft robotics, underwater robotics, reinforcement learning, visual learning-based control, computer vision, control systems, and artificial intelligence. His current research involves designing, modeling, and developing learning-based control for a robotic eye and a soft robotic fish driven by artificial muscles.

Students Mentored​

  • [June 2022-September 2022] Chase Joyner, undergraduate student, Stanford University, Stanford, California
  • [June 2022-August 2022] Diya Bhattacharjee, high-school student, Walt Whitman High School, Bethesda, Maryland
  • [June 2020-August 2020] Cynthia Li, high school student, Wheeler Magnet School, Marietta, Georgia
  • [May 2019-July 2019] Yuki Gao, undergraduate student in New York Institute of Technology, New York City
  • [Sep 2016-May 2017] Weiyu Liu, PhD student in Georgia Tech, Atlanta
  • [Sep 2016-May 2017] Zhen Liu, PhD student in University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • [Sep 2016-May 2017] Peiyu Wang, Security Engineer at CertiK, New York City
  • [Sep 2016-May 2017] Timothy Li, Applications Engineer at Tobii Tech, Mountain View
  • [May 2016-Dec 2016] Hongrui Zheng, PhD student in University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
  • [May 2016-July 2016] Emily Anaya, PhD student in Stanford, Stanford University