Prof. Xiuqing Hao

Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China

Hao Xiuqing, female, Ph.D., is a professor and master’s supervisor at the College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the director of Tsinghua x-lab. Her research interests include surface texturing and tribology, advanced manufacturing technologies, superhydrophobic surface design and fabrication, and applications of functional microstructured surfaces.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Chongqing University in 2007 and her Ph.D. from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2014, where she studied under Academician Lu Bingheng. During her doctoral studies, she participated in a jointly supervised program at Northwestern University in the United States. Since 2015, she has served as a lecturer at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and was promoted to associate professor in 2016. She has led more than 10 research projects, including General and Young Scientist projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a national defense basic research program project, and the Jiangsu Outstanding Young Scholar Fund. She has published more than 90 papers in journals such as Small and JMCA (including five papers with an impact factor above 10), and has been granted more than 20 invention patents.

In 2017, she was awarded the title of Changkong Scholar at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and in 2018 she was selected for the Jiangsu Provincial “Six Talent Peaks” high-level talent program. She has supervised student teams that won the 2022 Provincial Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis (Design) Team Award. She has also delivered invited talks at international academic conferences on multiple occasions, such as the 39th International Micro/Nano Engineering Conference, and has participated in the review of National Natural Science Foundation of China projects.

Prof. Yu Zhao

Northwestern PolytechnicalUniversity, China

Yu Zhao, Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor at Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) . Professor Zhao is a recipient of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, a High-Level Talent in Shaanxi Province, an NPU "Aoxiang Scholar," and a key member of the "Aoxiang" Team. He has long been engaged in research on swarm intelligence decision-making, planning, and control, as well as their applications in the fields of aviation, aerospace, and navigation (the "Three Aviation" specialties). He has presided over and undertaken more than 20 fund projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Young Scientists Fund, General Program), National Key R&D Program projects, JKW projects, open projects of State Key Laboratories, and the Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation. He has published over 100 academic papers, including 20 papers in top-tier journals such as IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control andAutomatica (10 full-length articles). More than 10 of his papers have been selected as ESI Highly Cited Papers. His research results have been positively cited and evaluated by over 30 academicians from China and abroad. He has been consecutively listed in the "World's Top 2% Scientists" list. Professor Zhao has received one Second Prize for National Defense Science and Technology Progress, one First Prize for Shaanxi Provincial Graduate Education Achievement, one Best Paper Award from the National Complex Networks Conference, and two Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Excellent Academic Paper Awards. He has served as Conference Chair, Technical Committee Chair, and in other capacities for multiple domestic and international academic conferences, including IEEE and IFAC. Under his supervision, graduate students have won numerous honors, including the 2026 Chinese Association of Command and Control Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award, the Northwestern Polytechnical University Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award, the First Prize of the 2025 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Best Paper Award, the Best Paper Award at the 2026 10th International Conference on Computer Science and Intelligent Control, the Best Paper Award at the 2025-2026 International Conference on Unmanned Systems, and the Best Paper Award at the 2025 1st Conference on Systems Engineering and Electronics.

Prof. Haoqi Wang

Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, China

A Research Fellow, doctoral supervisor, and a recipient of the Special Government Allowance of Henan Province. He has been selected as a Zhongyuan Young Top Talent in Science and Technology Innovation, received the Henan Provincial Outstanding Young Scholars Fund, and been named an Academic and Technical Leader by the Henan Provincial Department of Education. His research focuses on the optimal design of complex equipment, industrial digital twins, human–robot collaboration, and safety management and control. He received his Ph.D. from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2018 and undertook joint doctoral training at McGill University in Canada. He has led two projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and has published more than 40 papers as first or corresponding author in leading domestic and international journals, including Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Advanced Engineering Informatics, and Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering. He holds 23 Chinese invention patents and three U.S. invention patents. He led a project that received the Second Prize of the 2025 Henan Provincial Technological Invention Award. He also participated in projects recognized with the First Prize of the 2023 Henan Provincial Technological Invention Award, the First Prize of the 2022 China Machinery Industry Science and Technology Award for Progress, and the First Prize of the 2019 Henan Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award. He has been invited to deliver 15 presentations on digital twins at major international and domestic academic conferences.

Prof. Zhi Yang

Zhengzhou University, China

Ph.D. advisor and recipient of the National High-Level Youth Talent Award. His research focuses on extreme luminescent materials and mechanisms—including those under ultrafast and high-temperature conditions—as well as scintillator radiation detection and X-ray imaging applications. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Xi’an University of Electronic Science and Technology in 2010 and his Ph.D. from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2015. He has served as a visiting scholar at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Stanford University. He has led projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Key Laboratory of National Defense Science and Technology, and the Provincial Key Research and Development Program, and has participated in the Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has published more than 80 papers in domestic and international academic journals, including *Nature Communications*, *Advanced Materials*, *Advanced Functional Materials*, *Advanced Powder Materials*, *ACS Nano*, *Laser & Photonics Reviews*, *Adv Powder Mater*, and the *Journal of Artificial Crystallography*, and has been granted four Chinese invention patents.