Yang Gao

Professor of Robotics, King's College London

Region: Europe, Asia

Field: Engineering, Technology, Science

Profile: Professor Yang Gao is a world-renowned space roboticist with 20 years of R&D experience in AI robotics for space and other extreme environments alike such as nuclear and utility. She is currently the Professor of Robotics and heads the Centre for Robotics Resesarch at King’s College London, UK. She is the founding head of the multi-award-winning Space Technology for Autonomous and Robotic systems Laboratory (STAR LAB), established first at University of Surrey UK since 2007, as well as the founding director of space start-up company Ai4SPACE Ltd. Throughout her career so far, Prof. Gao has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 internationally teamed projects funded by space agencies and industries. She has also been involved in real-world space missions such as ESA ExoMars, Proba3 and VMMO (aka. lunar ice mapper), UK MoonLITE/MoonRaker, and CNSA Chang'E3.

Prof. Gao is the elected Fellow of Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS). She was named by the Times Higher Education in 2008 one of ten UK’s young leading academics making a significant contribution to their disciplines, and she received the Mulan Award in 2019 for her contributions to science, technology and engineering. Research work under her supervision received awards such as the International Astronautical Federation 3AF Edmond Brun Silver Medal in 2013, COSPAR Outstanding Paper Award in 2016, joint Winner of ESA SysNova Challenge in 2018, or First Prize of Best Poster Award at IEEE-ICRA Space Workshop in 2020, etc.