portrait

Dr. Jianfei Yang
Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track)

Director of Multimodal embodied AI and Robotic Systems <MARS> Lab
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Office: N3-02b-59, North Spine (N3), 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798

Email: jianfei.yang (at) ntu.edu.sg

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), leading the Multimodal embodied AI and Robotic Systems <MARS Lab>.

My group studies Physical AI, focusing on How can robots learn and interact with the world as robustly and adaptively as humans. Much like human intelligence, AI evolves by continuously gaining and exchanging information with its environment. This is closely related to our research on robot learning, multimodal models, physical agent, and system deployment.

I obtained my B.Eng. from SYSU in 2016 and Ph.D. from NTU in 2020, receiving the prestigious Best Thesis Award under the supervision of Prof. Xie Lihua. I was a senior research engineer at BEARS, the University of California, Berkeley, in 2021, and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at NTU from 2021 to 2023. In 2024, I was a visiting scientist at the University of Tokyo working with Prof. Tatsuya Harada, and a visiting professor at Harvard University working with Prof. Vijay Janapa Reddi.

I am recognized as the World’s Top 2% Scientists (2022-present) compiled by Stanford University, and the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 (Class 2024). I am serving as an Associate Editor for IEEE TNNLS and Neurocomputing. Besides research, I am keen on participating AI and data challenges to deal with real-world interdisciplinary problems. I won first places in 10+ International AI challenges and hackathons held by IEEE, ACM, and leading industry companies. Additionally, I was invited at 1st China AI Talk Show “燃烧吧，天才程序员”. During my spare time, I enjoy swimming, tennis and music (saxophone and guitar).

You can find me on: [ Google Scholar | LinkedIn | ResearchGate | Web of Science | ORCID ]

Join My Lab

Please look at the Lab Page


Thanks for your interest in joining my group! Due to the high volume of emails I receive, I may not be able to respond to each one individually. Please review the information below before contacting me. Thank you.

Prospective Ph.D. students: please email me with your CV, representative papers (if any), and a short research statement.

Prospective postdocs: please email me directly with your CV, and a research statement.

Current NTU students, prospective visiting students, and remote interns: please email me with your CV.

  • NTU Msc and undergraduate students: the minimum time commitment is 15 hours per week.
  • Visiting students and remote interns: the minimum length of a visit is six months.

News

  • Apr 2026: (paper) Our A2A flow matching is accepted by RSS-26.
  • Feb 2026: (paper) Three papers (two main + 1 findings) are accepted by CVPR-26.
  • Jan 2026: (paper) Two papers (on HRI and robotics) are accepted by ICLR-26. One paper on real-world RL is accepted by ICRA-26.
  • Dec 2025: (activity) During the winter vocation, I organize an NTU undergrad embodied AI student trip supported by MAE, and attend A-TECH Robot Challenge in CUHK.
  • Nov 2025: (paper) Three papers (on World Models and Multimodal AI) are accepted by AAAI-25.
  • Oct 2025: (service) I am honored to serve as an advisor for Unitree Humanoid Combat Challenge.
  • Sep 2025: (paper) Three papers (Holo-LLM, Benford’s Curse and Intend to Move) are accepted by NeurIPS-25.
  • Sep 2025: (member) Welcome our first bimanual manipulation robot, a Galaxeai R1 lite.
  • Jun 2025: (paper) Two papers (on 3D-GS and LiDAR-Odometry) are accepted by IROS-25.
  • May 2025: (member) Welcome our first humanoid robot member, a Unitree G1!
  • Feb 2025: (paper) Our ICLR-25 paper (Feedback Neural Network) is selected as an oral paper (top 1.8%).
  • Jan 2025: (paper) Two papers (on X-Fi and Feedback Neural Network) are accepted by ICLR-25.
  • Jan 2025: (paper) One paper on non-rigid point registration is accepted by ICRA-25.
  • Jan 2025: (project) Happy to participate in Meta Project Aria!
  • Jan 2025: (paper) One papers on debias is accepted by NAACL-25.
  • Aug 2024: (service) I am serving as an Area Chair in ICLR-25.
  • Aug 2024: (award) My 1st PhD student, Zhou Chuhao, won the first prize at ECCV-24 Data Distillation Challenge. Congratulations!
  • Aug 2024: (paper) Our paper on Multivariate Time-Series Transfer Learning has been accepted by IEEE TPAMI (IF=20.8).
  • Jul 2024: (activity) I am invited to give a talk on multimodal AI by Prof. Shing-Tung Yau (丘成桐) at ICBS-24.
  • Jul 2024: (paper) Our survey on Video Domain Adaptation has been accepted by ACM Computing Surveys (IF=23.6).
  • Jul 2024: (paper) Two papers (on RF-Vision and multimodal learning) are accepted by ECCV-24.
  • May 2024: (award) I have been selected in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 List, Class 2024.
  • Apr 2024: (activity) I am happy to chair the “Transfer Learning” Session at ICRA-24. See you at Yokohama!
  • Apr 2024: (service) I am serving as an Associate Editor for Elsevier Neurocomputing.
  • Apr 2024: (activity) We are organizing IJCAI-24 Workshop on Deep Learning for Human Activity Recognition.
  • Apr 2024: (activity) I give a talk on multimodal transfer learning at the University of Tokyo and BeyondAI (Softbank).
  • Feb 2024: (activity) We are organizing UG2+ UAV Tracking and Estimation Challenge at CVPR-24.