Name: Yang Gao
Affiliation: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
Biography: Professor Yang Gao FIET FRAeS, is a world-renowned space roboticist with over 20 years of R&D and space mission experience including European Space Agency (ESA)’s ExoMars, Proba-3 and lunar VMMO; UK's CLEAR, MoonLITE and Moonraker; and China's Chang'E-3/8. She has led research projects for the ESA, UK Space Agency, UKRI, EU, ITC, and industrial companies. Her honours include the Mulan Award for Contributions to Science, Technology and Engineering (2019), Distinguished Global Leadership Award (2025) and White Page’s Global Women Power Leaders (2026), and research under her leadership has won IAF 3AF Edmond Brun Silver Medal (2013), COSPAR Outstanding Paper Award (2016), ESA SysNova Challenge First Prize (2018), IEEE-ICRA Space Workshop Wiley Poster Award First Prize (2020), and Sino-UK Entrepreneurship Competition First Prize (2022), among others.
On the global stage, Professor Gao holds or has held leadership positions in space and robotics, including Distinguished Lecturer in Space Robotics by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE-RAS); Co-Chair of IEEE-RAS Space Robotics Technical Committee, Editor-in-Chief of Wiley's Journal of Field Robotics, and Mentor for the United Nations' "Space4Women" program towards Sustainable Development Goals.
Professor Gao joined The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in mid-2025 as Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. At HKUST, she founded the Centre for AI and Robotics in Space Sustainability (CAIRSS), dedicated to developing cutting-edge technologies for orbital debris removal, autonomous space systems, and in-situ extraterrestrial resource utilization to provide innovative solutions for crewed/uncrewed deep space missions. She is also Co-Director of HKUST’s Space Science & Technology Institute (SSTI), as well as the Director of InnoHK Hong Kong Space Robotics & Energy Centre (HKSREC).
Prior to joining HKUST, she spent over twenty years in the UK as Professor of Robotics and Director of the Robotics Centre at King's College London. Earlier, as Professor of Space Autonomous Systems at the University of Surrey, she founded and led the award-winning Space Technology and Autonomous Robotic systems Laboratory (STAR-LAB). Before moving to the UK from Singapore in 2004, she was the awardee of the prestigious Singapore Millennium Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship conducting research in intelligent robotics. Professor Gao earned her First-Class Honors Bachelor's degree (2000) and PhD (2003) from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
For more details, please visit her personal webpage: https://yanggao.people.ust.hk/.
Name: Xingjian Jing
Affiliation: City University of Hong Kong, China
Biography: Xingjian Jing received the B.S. degree from Zhejiang University, China, the M.S. degree and PhD degree in Robotics from Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively. He also achieved the PhD degree in nonlinear systems and signal processing from University of Sheffield, U.K.
He is now a Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong. Before joining in CityU, he was a Research Fellow with the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, followed by assistant professor and associate professor with Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His current research interests include: Nonlinear dynamics, Vibration, Control and Robotics, with a series of 280+ publications of 16000+ citations and H-index 68 (in Google Scholar), with a number of patents filed in China and US. He is one of the world top2% highly cited scientists and IEEE senior member.
Prof Jing is the recipient of a number of academic and professional awards including 2016 IEEE SMC Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award, 2017 TechConnect World Innovation Award in US, 2017 EASD Senior Research Prize in Europe and 2017 the First Prize of HK Construction Industry Council Innovation Award, etc.
He currently serves (or served) Senior Editor of Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Topic Associate Editor of Nonlinear Dynamics, and Associate Editors of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, Cybernetics -Systems, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (2021-2024), and Technical Editor of IEEE/ASME Trans. on Mechatronics (2015-2020). He was lead editors of special issues on “Exploring nonlinear benefits in engineering” during 2018-2019 and “Next-generation vibration control exploiting nonlinearities” during 2021-2022 both published in Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing. He is the general conference chair of ICANDVC since 2021.
Name: Chinthaka Premachandra
Affiliation: Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan
Biography: Chinthaka Premachandra was born in Sri Lanka. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Mie University, Tsu, Japan, in 2006 and 2008, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, in 2011. From 2012 to 2015, he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan. From 2016 to 2017, he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, where he was an Associate Professor, from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, he was promoted to a Professor with the Department of Advance Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering and Graduate School of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, where he is currently the Director of the Image Processing and Robotic Laboratory. His research interests include AI, UAV, image processing, audio processing, intelligent transport systems (ITS), and mobile robotics.
He is a member of IEEE, IEICE, Japan; SICE, Japan; RSJ, Japan; and SOFT, Japan. He has received many awards, including the IEEE SENSORS LETTERS Best Paper Award from the IEEE Sensors Council in 2022 and the IEEE Japan Medal from the IEEE Tokyo Section in 2022. He also received the FIT Best Paper Award and the FIT Young Researchers Award from IEICE and IPSJ, Japan, in 2009 and 2010, respectively. He has served as a steering committee member and an editor for many international conferences and journals. He is the Founding Chair of the International Conference on Image Processing and Robotics (ICIPRoB), which is technically co-sponsored by IEEE. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (R-AL) and Guest Editor for IEEE Sensors Journal.