CS professor Wenzhen Yuan was awarded the IEEE RAS Early Academic Career Award at the May 19-23, 2025, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference in Atlanta, GA. The Robotics and Automation Society is the most important international professional organization for roboticists.
Written by Bruce Adams
Photo Credit: Holly Birch Photography
Wenzhen Yuan
CS professor Wenzhen Yuan was awarded the IEEE RAS Early Academic Career Award at the May 19-23, 2025, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference in Atlanta, GA. The Robotics and Automation Society is the most important international professional organization for roboticists.
Yuan's areas of research interest include tactile sensing and its application in robot perception and manipulation, soft robotics, and haptics. She is the director of RoboTouch Lab, where research is being conducted to enable robots to utilize touch sensing for interaction with real-world environments. New sensors are being designed and constructed there to enhance the perceptual capabilities of robots and investigate how tactile feedback, whether active or passive, can aid robots in various perceptual and manipulation tasks. This research ranges from sensor modeling, sensor design, sensor manufacturing, algorithm design for signal processing, and robot applications such as grasping.
Grainger Engineering Affiliations
Wenzhen Yuan is an Illinois Grainger Engineering professor of computer science