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/.