Zhao Han, Ph.D.

Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
Dissertation: Robot Explanations: Preferences, Generation, and Communication
Committee: Holly Yanco (advisor, AAAI Fellow), Reza Ahmadzadeh, Aaron Steinfeld (CMU)

M.S., Computer Science, University of Manitoba, Canada
Thesis: Delivering Scalable Frequent Pattern Mining for Non-Expert Data Miners
Advisor: Carson Leung, Lab: Database and Data Mining Lab

B.S., Computer Science (Honours, three co-op terms), University of Manitoba, Canada
Area of specialization: HCI, Computer Graphics, Software Engineering, Databases and Data Mining

Assistant Professor, Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, University of South Florida
Lab: Reality, Autonomy, and Robot Experience (RARE) Lab

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Computer Science, Colorado School of Mines
Advisor: Tom Williams, Lab: Mines Interactive Robotics Research Lab (MIRRORLab)

Projects:

• Givenness Hierarchy Theoretic Natural Language Generation for Situated HRI
  • Collaborators: Neil T. Dantam, Hao Zhang
• Augmented Reality and Physio-Enhanced Robotic Gesture (APERTURE)
  • Collaborators: Leanne Hirshfield (Psychology), Christopher D. Wickens (Psychology)

Adjunct Faculty^†, Department of Computer Science, Colorado School of Mines

• Course: Augmented Reality (4.72/5.0 in course evaluation)

Research Assistant, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Advisor: Holly Yanco, Lab: Human-Robot Interaction Lab

Projects:

• Robotic Manipulation Assistance for Activities of Daily Living
• FetchIt Mobile Manipulation Challenge at ICRA 2019
• Self-assessment & Understanding of Competence and Conditions to Ensure System Success
  • Collaborators: Aaron Steinfeld (CMU), Henny Admoni (CMU), Jacob Crandall (BYU),
    Michael Goodrich (BYU), Matthias Scheutz (Tufts), Reid Simmons (CMU)

Teaching Assistant^†, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Marker/Teaching Assistant^†, Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba, Canada

Software Developer^‡, Payment Processing, iQmetrix (350+ employees), Winnipeg, Canada

App. Developer^‡, Twitter & Facebook, Blackberry (3500+ employees), Ottawa, Canada

App. Developer (Web, Co-op)^‡, Wawanesa Insurance (3000+ employees), Winnipeg, Canada

Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research Award – Faculty
University of South Florida

Mines Diversity, Inclusion & Access (DI&A) Award to Mines Asian Community Alliance, Outstanding Campus Engagement
Colorado School of Mines

Best Late Breaking Report (LBR) Nominee (top 5%, 7/139)
2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Paper: Towards Improved Replicability of Human Studies in Human-Robot Interaction: Recommendations for Formalized Reporting

Mines Diversity, Inclusion & Access (DI&A) Award, Creating a Culture of Inclusion (Faculty)
Colorado School of Mines

• Founded Mines Asian Community Alliance to foster an inclusive environment and sense of belonging
• Centralized resources for the postdoc community as a founding officer of the postdoc program

Best Long-Paper Award
2022 ACL 15th International Natural Language Generation Conference (INLG)

• Paper: Evaluating Referring Form Selection Models In Partially-Known Environments

Elected Councilor (7/2022–6/2025), Mathematical, Computing, and Statistical Sciences Division (MCS)
The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)

Third Prize, Best Late Breaking Report (LBR) Award (top 3%, 3/103)
2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Paper: A Task Design for Studying Referring Behaviors for Linguistic HRI

Finalist (proposal writer & team lead)
Analog Devices Real-Time Sensor Fusion Challenge, Analog Devices (ADI), FedEx, Mitsubishi Electric, SICK, SolidWorks, and MassRobotics

• Awarded $2,500 in seed funding
• Led 2 members (1 undergraduate) to develop tabletop projection mapping for robot intention
• Competed with Brown University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and startups.

First Place (proposal writer & team lead)
Panasonic Prototype 3D LiDAR Challenge, Panasonic, Harmonic Drive, SolidWorks, and MassRobotics

• Awarded $10,000 plus $2,500 seed funding
• Competed with Boston University, Northeastern University, Olin College
• Led 2 team members (1 engineer) to develop small object detection from sparse LiDAR data

Second Place (team description writer & team lead)
FetchIt! Mobile Manipulation Challenge, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Fetch Robotics, EandM, SCHUNK, SICK, and The Construct

• Awarded $5,000 & LiDARs (led 2 team members vs. 10+ in the first-placed team)
• Competed with Georgia Tech & Columbia University
• Developed autonomous manipulation and navigation on Fetch for gearbox assembly kitting

Tam Do, Chi Vo, CRA UR2PhD Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Ridhima Phatak, DEI Student Pioneers, the 4th Workshop on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in HRI at HRI 2025

Adrian Lozada, Accepted Participant, CRA-WP Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU)

Hong Wang, 2024 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women

Uthman Tijani, 2024 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills (IDEALS)

Software Engineering (undergraduate, 66 students), University of South Florida

Augmented Reality (4^th year and graduate, 28 students), University of South Florida

Software Engineering (undergraduate, 38 students), University of South Florida

• Redesigned course material: Slides, assessments, technical topic presentations, and final projects

Augmented Reality (graduate, 60 students), University of South Florida

• Achieved an average rating of 4.4/5.0 in course evaluation
• Successfully taught a large class with 60 mostly international M.S. students

Augmented Reality (4^th year and graduate, 30 students), Colorado School of Mines

• Achieved an average rating of 4.7/5.0 in course evaluation
• Designed course description and developed learning outcomes for essential knowledge and skills
• Developed homework to better assess learning outcomes
• Developed evaluation and experiment design course material

Teaching Assistant, Artificial Intelligence (4^th year), University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Lectured on uninformed search algorithms
• Went through practical questions in class, provided answer keys for midterm exam questions

Teaching Assistant, Mobile Robotics I (4^th year), University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Graded robot demonstrations and answered questions on the KIPR Wallaby robot controller

Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Computing I Lab (1^st year), University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Led labs, answered C questions, and helped students debug

Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Computing II Lab (1^st year), University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Led labs, answered C++ questions, and helped students debug memory-related bugs
• Coordinated with a grader to grade assignments

Teaching Assistant, Software Architecture (3^rd year), University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Graded assignments written in assembly language

Marker, Object-Orientation (2^nd year), University of Manitoba

• Same as 5/2015 – 8/2015 except marked one Ruby assignment
• The instructor said: “Thanks so much for being prompt this term and a good grader.”

Teaching Assistant/Marker, Advanced Artificial Intelligence (4^th year), University of Manitoba

• Lectured: Bayesian Reasoning, Markov Chains, and Rapidly Exploring Random Trees.
• Graded assignments (written in Python, Java, C++), midterm and final exams

Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Programming Practices Lab (2^nd year), University of Manitoba

• Taught 70 students for around 15 minutes in five 75-minute lab sections
• Prepared lab material from the famous Programing Pearls book (Columns 2, 3, 5, 10)
• Assigned lab marks based on their Unix (OS X), C (lldb, Xcode) knowledge
• Provided feedback to the instructor after lab

Marker, Databases: Concepts and Usage (3^rd year), University of Manitoba

• Provided rubrics for 100+ students‘ SQL and Relational Algebra assignments

Marker, Object-Orientation (2^nd year), University of Manitoba

• Provided timely and tailored feedback to 40 students who programmed in Java and C++

Workshop on Using Student Feedback to Improve Your Course
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), University of South Florida

CITL and ODEI Book Club
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), University of South Florida

Small Tweaks, Large Impact
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), University of South Florida

• Learned six science-based strategies to enhance learning: Retrieval, Practicing, Interleaving, Self- Explaining, Learning Through Practicing, and Learning Through Connecting.

Course: Foundations of Course Design
Trefny Innovative Instruction Center, Colorado School of Mines

• Synthesize your course vision, purpose, relevance, and key impacts in a course description
• Develop course learning outcomes consistent with course key impacts and course description
• Plan summative assessments that align with CLOs
• Outline Pathways to Mastery that support students in mastering the learning outcomes

Amanuel Ergogo (Ph.D. student). Explanability for Robot Learning.

Ridhima Phatak (M.S. student). Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Xiangfei Kong (M.S. thesis student). AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Hong Wang (Ph.D. student). Indicating a robot’s physical vision capability.

Tianze Chen, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida
Major Professor: Yu Sun
Title: Robotic Multi-Object Grasping from a Pile: Techniques and Algorithms for Enhanced Dexterity

Felipe Fronchetti, Ph.D. in Computer Science, Virginia Commonwealth University
Major Professor: Rodrigo Spínola
Title: Exploring End-User Environments for the Control and Programming of Collaborative Robots

Kejvi Cupa, M.S. in Computer Science, University of South Florida
Major Professor: Yu Sun
Title: Automatic Image-Based Nutritional Calculator App

Waylon Erlandson. Indicating a robot’s physical vision capability.

Lindsay Rogers. Making AI Robots Explainable.

Isfahan Juboraj. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Sofia Cobo Navas. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Andrew Texeira. Social Robots for Older Adult Companionship.

Devansh Pavdighada. Making AI Robots Explainable.

Deep Akbari. Social Robots for Older Adult Companionship.

Mateo Osorio Vela. Making AI Robots Explainable.

Rex Gonzalez. Social Robots for Older Adult Companionship.

Aditi Singh. AI-powered recipe robot recommender.

Anjali Krishna. AI-powered recipe robot recommender.

Thao (Jennifer) Nguyen. Indicating a robot’s physical vision capability.

Grant Henderson. Explanability for Robot Learning.

Thuc Anh Nguyen. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Gavin Wilson. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Paramveer Singh Bhele. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Aarav Jain. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Abrar Zahin. Robot Learning.

Thomveebol Phorn. Indicating robot’s vision capability.

Ngoc Bao Dinh. In-air projection for robot communication.

Mariah Barreto. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Suyog Bam. Using robots to improve college students’ mental health.

Tan Hoang Khoa Nguyen. In-air projection for robot communication.

Michael Klein. In-air projection for robot communication.

Nicolas Echeverria. Protectives to mitigate robot abuse.

Tu (Tony) Nguyen. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Vlad Krukhmalev. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Chi Vo. Using robots to improve college students’ mental health.

Jonathan Wong. Explainable robots by design with AR.

Felix Mendez. Using robots to improve college students’ mental health.

Maria Julia Vidal. Indicating robot’s vision capability.

Dev Thakkar. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

James Yab. AR virtual vs. physical robot experiment results.

Ridhima Phatak. Continued to MS. Indicate robot’s field-of-view indicators & mitigate robot abuse.

Villa Keth. In-air projection for robot communication.

James Ocampo. Implementing robot’s physical vision indicator.

Duy Linh (Liam) Ha. Using robots to improve college students’ mental health.

Adrian Lozada. In-air projection for robot communication.

Tam (Tammy) Do. Using robots to improve college students’ mental health.

Daniel (Danny) Hammer (Ph.D. student, 1^st year). Evaluation of cognitive status-informed document planner.

Mark Higger (1^st year M.S. student. Transitioned to Ph.D. in 2023. 1 paper). Gesturing in referring form selection.

Yifei (Rena) Zhu^♀ (Ph.D. student, 1^st year. 1 paper). Comparing AR robot arm with physical robot arm.

Ruchen (Puck) Wen^♀ (Ph.D. student, 3^rd year to graduate). Research and career advice.

Aaron Fanganello. Evaluation of Cognitive Status-Informed Document Planner.

Keenan Schott (1 paper). Comparing deictic and non-deictic spatial gestures.

Annie Huang^♀ (1 paper). Comparing deictic and non-deictic spatial gestures.

Aly Ranucci^♀ (1 paper). Comparing deictic and non-deictic gestures.
Sander Schott. Gesturing in referring form selection.
Nelson Valencia. ––.
Gazi Md Iftakher Morshed. ––.

Gabriel Del Castillo (1 paper). Givenness Hierarchy-informed theoretic referential choice for linguistic robots.

Fernando Sandoval Garza (2 papers). Comparing AR robot arm with physical robot arm.

Grace Clark^♀ (2 papers). Givenness Hierarchy-informed theoretic referential choice for linguistic robots.
Amia Castro^♀ (2 papers). Eye tracking implementation in augmented reality.
Albert Phan (2 papers). Comparing virtual robot arm in augmented reality with physical robot arm.
Polina Rygina (2 papers)^♀. Referring forms corpus collection for situated human-robot interaction.
Katherine Deal^♀. ––.

Aly Ranucci^♀. Category transitions between deictic and non-deictic spatial gestures.

Alexander Wilkinson (3 papers – 1 journal). Projection mapping for tabletop manipulation intent.
Vittoria Santoro^♀. Investigating physical replay to Fetch robot using MongoDB.
Yash Patel. Converting robot policy programmed in C++ to behavior trees.

Jenna Parrillo^♀ (3 papers). Near-table navigation. Projection mapping for navigation intent.
Daniel Giger (2 papers). Robot simulation. Visualize perceived & learned policies using behavior tree.

Gregory LeMasurier (1 paper. Started Ph.D. in 2021). Door handle manipulation and robotics simulation.
John DeNyse. Enforcing gripper constrain in probabilistic manipulation planning.
Sanskriti Sharma^♀. Extracting common code in the FetchIt mobile manipulation codebase.

Alexander Wilkinson (3 papers – 1 journal). Projection mapping for tabletop manipulation intent.
Vittoria Santoro^♀. Investigating physical replay to Fetch robot using MongoDB.
Yash Patel. Converting robot policy programmed in C++ to behavior trees.

Jenna Parrillo^♀ (3 papers). Near-table navigation. Projection mapping for navigation intent.
Daniel Giger (2 papers). Robot simulation. Visualize perceived & learned policies using behavior tree.

Gregory LeMasurier (1 paper. Started Ph.D. in 2021). Door handle manipulation and robotics simulation.
John DeNyse. Enforcing gripper constrain in probabilistic manipulation planning.
Sanskriti Sharma^♀. Extracting common code in the FetchIt mobile manipulation codebase.

Program Committee Member
AAAI 2023 Undergraduate Consortium

Poster Presentation Judge, 2022 Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium
Colorado School of Mines

• Rated three posters on visual organization, verbal delivery, and individual sections
• Gave feedback and encouragement to undergraduate researchers

Workshop, “Mentorship: The Key to Success in the Academic Workspace”

Workshop: “Centering Equity and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research Mentoring.”

Poster Presentation Judge, 2022 Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium
Colorado School of Mines

• Rated five posters on visual organization, verbal delivery, and individual sections
• Gave feedback and encouragement to undergraduate researchers

• Program Committee

Associate Editor
2025 IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

• Recruiting expert reviewers, writing meta-reviews

• Organization

Publications Co-Chair
2026 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Organization

Session Chair, Session 2B Teleoperation and Shared Autonomy (+ Short Contributions)
2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Program Committee

Program Committee (PC) Member (Main Track, Studies Theme)
2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Recruiting 21 expert reviewers, writing 7 meta-reviews and 7 grand-reviews

• Organizer

Co-Organizer
2024 Workshop on Affective Human-Robot Interaction, 12th International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2024)

• Helped advertise call for paper, attracted 7 submissions and reviewed 2 papers

• Program Committee

Associate Editor for Late-breaking reports
2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

• Recruited 10 reviewers for five manuscripts with two for each
• Meta-reviewed five manuscripts by summarizing reviews

Proposal Review Panelist, Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR)
National Science Foundation (NSF)

• Reviewed 3 grant proposals with 15-page descriptions
• Attended 2-day panel meeting discussing 9 proposals with program officer and reviewers

• Organizer

Co-Organizer, Workshop on “Causal-HRI: Causal Learning for Human-Robot Interaction,” 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Program Committee

Program Committee (PC) Member (Main Track, Studies Theme)
2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Attended 2.5-day in-person meeting discussing over 40 papers with 6 top HRI researchers
• Recruited 7 expert reviewers, meta-reviewed 4 papers, and grand-reviewed 5 papers

• Editorial

Guest Editor, Special Issue on Human-mediated Robot Autonomy
International Journal of Social Robotics

• Program Committee
• Organizer

Diversity and Inclusion Chair, Program Committee (PC) Member
2023 AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI)

• Secured 5 complimentary registrations to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Meta-reviewed 3 submissions and discussed them during PC meeting

• Editorial

Lead Topic Editor, Perceiving, Generating, and Interpreting Affect in HRI
Frontiers in Robotics and AI

• Co-drafted research topic proposal with a list of 118 potential authors

• Organization

Publications Co-Chair
2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Organizer

Co-Organizer
2023 Workshop on Affective Human-Robot Interaction, 11th International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2023)

• Co-drafted workshop proposal
• Initiated a special issue (special topic collection) with Frontiers in Robotics and AI
• Advertised CFP in multiple mailing lists
• Hosted the workshop in person (5 keynote speakers and 8 authors)

• Program Committee

Program Committee (PC) Member (Main Track, Technical Theme → Studies Theme)
2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

• Attended 3-day PC meeting discussing over 40 papers with 13 top HRI researchers
• Recruited 16 expert reviewers, meta-reviewed 5 papers, and grand-reviewed 4 papers

• Organization

Session Co-Chair, Special Session: Computational Advances in Human-Robot Interaction 1
2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

• Organizer

General Co-Chair
2022 AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI)

• Led symposium application and discussion with 14 co-organizers on theme, topic, format, etc.
• Promoted diversity by initiating DEI Chair negotiating five complimentary registrations
• Initiated a Blue Sky Ideas track and attracted over 20 submissions
• Co-led PC meeting and hosted the 2.5-day hybrid symposium in Washington, D.C., USA

• Organizer

Co-Organizer
2022 Workshop on Affective Human-Robot Interaction, 10th International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2022)

• Attracted 10 submissions and participated in all aspects of workshop organization
• Contacted and invited one of the speakers and hosted the early morning session

• Program Committee

Area Chair, Program Comittee
2022 ACM International Conf. on Automotive UI and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI)

• Recruited multiple reviewers for manuscripts in autonomous vehicles

• Education

Elected Councilor (7/2022–6/2025), Mathematical, Computing, & Statistical Sciences Division
Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)

• Design and implement initiatives to support and promote high-quality mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry
• Attend the ConnectUR conference for career development to learn, study, and master approaches to undergraduate research

• Editorial
• Organizer

Lead Principal Co-Organizer, Special Session on Computational Advances in HRI
2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022)

• Proposed & drafted an application explaining goal and themes of submitted papers
• Accepted to the top-tier robotics conference with five other organizers
• Attracted over 20 IROS and RA-L submissions and expanded two special sessions
• Led to two papers nominated as IROS best paper awards, one per session

• Policy
• Standards

Standards Voting Member, P3107 – Standard Terminology for Human-Robot Interaction
IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA)

• Policy
• Standards

Subgroup Co-Chair & Standards Voting Member, P3108 – Recommended Practice for HRI Design of Human Subject Studies
IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA)

• Contributed topic coverage for HRI human-subjects study recommendations
• Co-chairing subgroup 4 on Data Reporting/Release, Replicability (eight members)

• Editorial
• Organizer

Guest Editor, Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction
ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI)

• Drafted special issue application and Call for Paper (CFP)
• Communicated with journal editors to announce the CFP
• Sought and assigned reviewers for submitted manuscripts
• Attracted 18 submissions and wrote two meta reviews

• Organizer

Co-Organizer, Program Co-Chair, Session Chair
2020 and 2021 AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI)

• Reviewed symposium application submitted to AAAI
• Helped determine program for virtual conference: breakout rooms
• Chaired a paper session (Ethics/Trust)
• Wrote meta-reviews, assigned reviewers, maintained website, publicized on Twitter

• Membership

Professional Society Member

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) — SIGCHI, SIGAI
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) — Robotics and Automation Society (RAS)
• Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
• Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)
• Research Data Alliance (RDA)
• National Postdoctoral Association (NPA)

Journal

• ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI) – ’21 (1), ’22 (2), ’23 (1), ’24 (3)
• IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) – ’21 (2), ’22 (2), ’23 (1)
• Frontiers in Robotics and AI – ’22 (1)
• IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (TNSRE) -’23 (1)

Conference

HRI, Robotics, AI

• ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) – ’22 (6), ’23 (9), ’24 (9)
• IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) – ’18 (1), ’19 (2), ’20 (1), ’21 (1), ’23 (2)
• IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) – ’22 (1), ’23 (1)
• IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) – ’22 (2)
• Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) (RSS) – ’24 (2)
• ACM International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) – ’22 (1), ’23 (2)
• International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR) – ’21 (1)
• ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Short Contributions – ’21 (1), ’23 (1)
• AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence – ’23 (1)

HCI, AR/VR, Cognitive Science

• ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) – ’23 (1), ’24 (4)
• ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), alt.chi – ’22 (2), ’23 (1)
• IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) – ’22 (1)
• IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR) – ’23 (2), ’24 (1)
• ACM International Conference on Automotive UI and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI) – ’22 (2)
• Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci) – ’22 (1), ’23 (2), ’24 (2)

Symposium, Workshop, and Late-Breaking Report

• AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI) – ’20 (5), ’21 (4), ’22 (2)
• ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Late-Breaking Report – ’22 (1)
• ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Late-Breaking Work – ’22 (5)
• International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Late-Breaking Work – ’23 (1)
• Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (RSS), Pioneers Workshop – ’20 (2)
• IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA) – ’15 (1)

CITA Search Committee Member
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida

Graduate Admissions Committee Member
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida

Spring Induction to the Profession Ceremony
College of Engineering, University of South Florida

Graduate Admissions Committee Member
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida

• Contributed revision of Ph.D. program admission in catalog

• Professional

Co-Organizer
3rd Workshop on Inclusive HRI: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community, HRI 2024

• University

Faculty Advisor
Chinese Students and Scholars Association, University of South Florida

• Professional

Co-Organizer
Inclusive HRI II: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community, HRI 2023

• Co-authored the workshop application for the 2023 edition
• Hosted a morning paper session with six papers
• Attracted 11 submissions and participated in all aspects of workshop organization

• Regional
• Postdoc

Planning Committee Member
Front Range Industry & Postdoc Summit (FRIPS)

• Approached sponsors and secured one corporate sponsor
• Recruited Robotics companies to attract Computer Science and Engineering postdocs

• Professional

Program Committee Member
Inclusive HRI Workshop: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community, HRI 2022

• National
• Postdoc

Committee Member, Public Policy Subcommittee, NPA Advocacy Committee
National Postdoctoral Association

• Helping to improve postdoc policies in NSF documents
• Advocating improving benefits and increasing salary range of postdocs

• University

Workshop Presenter, Interactive Workshop “Solidarity, Not Model Minority”
Celebration of DI&A Symposium, Colorado School of Mines

• Raised awareness of the history and harm of the Model Minority myth
• Broke the “Not Your Model Minority” film into three digestible interactive sessions with discussions
• Attracted 25+ attendees, promoting Stop Asian Hate movement as solidarity opportunity

• University

Planning Committee Member
Second Mines Community Alliances Professional Development Conference, Colorado School of Mines

• Proposed invited talks to attract the previously underrepresented faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students, ensuring all university communities are welcomed at the event

• University

Founding Chair
Mines Asian Community Alliance, Colorado School of Mines

• Established the organization to foster inclusive environment for Asian staff and faculty at Mines
• Coordinated with other 4 community alliances & university president to issue 3 support statements
• Recruited members, officers as well as exclusive sponsor from university leadership team
• Created a survey on the needs and interests of the membership and the university community

• University
• Postdoc

Founding Officer
Postdoctoral Affairs and Professional Development, Colorado School of Mines

• Promoted an inclusive environment for the underrepresented postdocs as research faculty
• Developed resources in benefits, housing, professional development, mental health, DE&I, et al.
• Helped develop website with on- & off-campus resources to support incoming & current postdocs

• University

Vice President (2017 – 2019) & Member (2016)
Chinese Students & Scholars Association, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Promoted an inclusive environment for Asians & raised awareness of Chinese culture
• Wrote, presented, and voted on funding proposals with the Office of Multicultural Affairs monthly
• Coordinated and organized events for traditional Chinese & East Asian festivals (200+ attendees)
• Recruited new members, maintained website & online forum

• K-12

Interactive Workshop Presenter
Summer Multicultural Engineering Training (SUMMET) program, Colorado School of Mines

• Introduced robot kinematics to 30+ high-schoolers, including underrepresented/first-generation

• Department

Co-Presenter to Toyota Research Institute
Department of Computer Science, Colorado School of Mines

• Introduced 20 Toyota Research Institute employees to the lab’s research in referring form selection

• K-10
• Department

Lecturer for 6-10th Grade Students (1 hour)
Department of Computer Science, Colorado School of Mines

• Explained the mathematical representation of robot arms
• Lectured the underlying math of forward and inverse kinematics to 25+ 6-10 grade students
• Presented a demo showing an JavaScript implementation in browser

• Department
• Advisory Board

Co-Presenter to External Advisory Board
Department of Computer Science, Colorado School of Mines

• Introduced 10+ board members to the lab’s research in AR and referring form selection

• K-12

Interactive Activity Presenter
“Girls Lead the Way” Conference, Colorado School of Mines

• Introduced 30+ high school girls to math concepts & algorithms of motion planning with demo

• K-6
• STEM Fair

STEM Fair Presenter
Shelton Elementary Math & Science Night STEM Fair, Golden, CO

• Proposed & presented a robot arm activity for 50+ elementary students to control the arm with rviz
• Explained to parents about motion planning, rapidly-exploring random trees, & inverse kinematics

• K-12
• Department

Department Tour Guide
Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Presented the FetchIt collaborative mobile manipulation kitting demo
• Explained to 80+ prospective students and their parents about this lab research platform

• K-12
• University

Research Center Tour Guide
New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Presented a robot-to-human handover demo (HRI’19 paper) to 50+ junior high school students

• K-12
• Judging

Judge
Botball Educational Robotics Program

• Enforced scoring rules and recorded scores of robot performance at competition tables

• Teacher Workshop

Technical Workshop Assistant
Botball Educator Workshops

• Answer 20+ middle school teachers’ questions on the KIPR Wallaby robot controller and C language

Invited Talk, ““R for Robot”–From HCI to HRI: Enabling Robots to Explain with Augmented Reality,” Human-Computer Interaction class, Tampa, FL.

Invited Talk, “Enabling Robot Explainability with AR,” 7th International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality for Human-Robot Interactions at HRI 2024, Boulder, CO.

Invited Talk, “Embodied Intelligence and Collaborative Robotics,” DFW Chinese IT Association (DFWITA), Dallas, TX. (Online)

Invited Talk. “Evaluating AI in Physical World and Coping Failures,” AI Seminar, Tampa, FL.

Invited Talk. “Independent Living Through Assistive Manipulation,” Research Opportunities in AgeTech, Tampa, FL.

Invited Talk. “Bridging The Gap Between Robots and Humans Through Explainability,” IEEE Denver, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

Invited Participant. NSF-funded “Workshop on Dialogue with Robots,” University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Invited Talk. “Bridging The Gap Between Robots and Humans Through Explainability,” University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD.

Invited Talk. “Bridging The Gap Between Robots and Humans Through Explainability,” University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), Dallas, TX.

Invited Talk. “Bridging The Gap Between Robots and Humans Through Explainability,” University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

Invited Talk. “Bridging The Gap Between Robots and Humans Through Explainability,” UC Merced, Merced, CA.

Invited Panelist. Explainability Panel, 2022 AAAI Spring Symposium on Closing the Assessment Loop: Communicating Proficiency and Intent in Human-Robot Teaming, Stanford, CA.

Invited Talk. “State Summarization With Behavior Trees for Explanation Generation & Communicating Causal Information of Past Actions,” ONR MURI Grant Annual Review, Virtual.

Invited Talk. “Robot Explanation Generation Using Behavior Trees,” Georgia Tech, Virtual.

Invited Talk. “Robot Explanation, AR, and Multiple Resource Theory,” Colorado School of Mines, Virtual.

Invited Talk. “Robot Explanation, AR, and Multiple Resource Theory”, Colorado School of Mines, Virtual.

Lighting Talk. “Communicating Missing Information of Robots’ Past Actions,” Office of Naval Research (ONR) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Grant Student Meeting, Virtual.

Integration Talk. Zhao Han and Michael Lee (CMU). “Using Behavior Trees to Improve Human’s Understanding of Agent Behavior,” ONR MURI Grant Annual Review, Lowell, MA.

Integration Talk and Demo. Zhao Han and Tyler Frasca (Tufts). “Going Cognitive: A Demonstration of the Utility of Task-General Cognitive Architectures for Adaptive Robotic Task Performance,” ONR MURI Grant Annual Review, Lowell, MA.

Lighting Talk. “Investigating Human-Robot Handover Release Behaviors,” 2018 New England Manipulation Symposium, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Invited Guest Lecturer. “Informed Search Algorithms”, Artificial Intelligence, UMass Lowell, Lowell, MA.

Guest Lecturer. “Bayesian Reasoning,” “Markov Chains,” and “Rapidly Exploring Random Trees,” University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

Guest Lecturer. “Bayesian Reasoning,” “Markov Chains,” and “Rapidly Exploring Random Trees”, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

ROS Discourse, “ROS News for the Week of 12/13/2021 (Projecting Robot Navigation Paths)”, December 2021.

MassRobotics, “Analog Devices Sensor Fusion Challenge“, June 2020.

MassRobotics, “Panasonic Prototype 3D LiDAR Challenge“, May 2020.

ONR MURI SUCCESS Project, “Annual Review Meeting 2019“, December 2019.

ONR MURI SUCCESS Project, “Summer 2019 Hacking and Integration“, August 2019.

UMass Lowell, “UML 125 Years Proud“, August, 2019

Inside Logistics (Canada), “Fetch rewards university team in manipulation challenge“, May 2019.

Bloomberg, The Associated Press, Robotics Tomorrow, Business Wire, “Winner of Fetch Robotics FetchIt! Challenge Executes Complex Manufacturing Tasks Using Autonomous Mobile Robotic Arm“, May 2019.

Today’s Medical Developments, “Fetch Robotics FetchIt! Mobile Manipulation Challenge winners“, May 2019.

Software Developer, iQmetrix, Winnipeg, Canada

• Involved in designing and implementing payment gateway API by integrating multiple payment providers (e.g., Avalon, Chase), consumed by retail management applications connected to POS machines
• Communicated with payment providers, such as Avalon, to clarify issues that existed in their payment gateway documentation
• Introduced the concept of aspect-oriented programming and reduced boilerplate code (cross-cutting concerns) for each API endpoint
• Mastered Scrum process with daily meetings, sprint planning, and story sizing
• Used C#, Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server (Agile project management, revision control, and code review)

Blackberry Software Developer, Research in Motion, Ottawa, Canada

• Worked on Twitter & Blackberry Messenger apps on Blackberry OS)
• Designed and implemented Model and Controller for compose screen. Collaborated with another co-op student who was working on UI.
• Investigated Push SDK on BBOS for registration & messages.
• Practiced multi-threaded programming to achieve faster list loading featured with auto more loading and list image loading.
• Prioritized and fixed defects, worked with the server team to clarify API issues.
• Involved in the Scrum process with daily meetings, sprint planning, and story sizing.
• Collaborated with SV&V (Software Verification & Validation) team to verify fixes.
• Used Java, Eclipse, Rally (Agile Project Management), Perforce (Revision Control), Code Collaborator (Code Review), MKS Integrity (Defect Tracking), and Jenkins (Continuous Integration).

Application Developer (Co-op), Wawanesa Insurance, Winnipeg, Canada

• Assigned to design and develop an AJAX-based web application in an insurance broker application, allowing insurance business people to manage files and content for insurance broker portal
• Contributed to a 12-people scrum team who rewrote and enhanced the insurance broker portal
• Collaborated with BA (Business Analyst) to help gather and clarify business requirements and document them on SharePoint, Web Designer to help make user interface decisions, other developers to deliver shippable product increments on spring basis, and QA (Quality Assurance) to fix defects reported on a bug tracking web appl – JIRA
• Reported status updates and provided feedback in a daily Scrum stand-up meeting
• Used Java, Eclipse, JQuery, HTML, CSS, Struts 2 (web framework), Apache Jackrabbit (Database), Subversion (Revision Control), Spring framework (Inversion of Control), Hibernate(Object Relational Mapping), and Selenium (Browser Automation)