Biography

Dr. Yang Gao is a tenure-track Associate Professor at the School of Future Technology, South China University of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 2021 from the State University of New York at Buffalo. After graduation, he joined HABits Lab at Northwestern University, working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Computer Science and the Feinberg School of Medicine. Upon returning to China, he served as a Zijiang Young Scholar and Research Fellow at East China Normal University. He was selected for the Shanghai Leading Talent (Overseas) Program and is currently the principal investigator of a National Natural Science Foundation project.

Dr. Gao has published over 40 papers, including 17 in top-tier venues such as Ubicomp, CHI, UIST, and IEEE TIFS (CCF-A and SCI-Q1 journals), with 11 as first or corresponding author. He serves as Associate Editor of Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), guest editor for multiple international journals, and an executive committee member of the CCF Ubiquitous Computing Technical Committee. He has received the CCF TPCI Best Paper Award (2024) and a Best Paper Honorable Mention at Ubicomp (2020).

Dr. Gao is currently recruiting Ph.D. and Master’s students with backgrounds in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human-Computer Interaction, and Circuit Design. His research group (led by Prof. Zhanpeng Jin) also welcomes applications for faculty positions (Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Research Fellow) and Postdoctoral Fellows.

Contact: gaoyang2025 [AT] scut.edu.cn

Personal Website

https://ygao36buffalo.github.io/truebluegy.github.io/

Education

Ph.D. 2018–2021, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA

Ph.D. 2015–2017, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA

M.S. 2012–2014, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA

B.S. 2008–2012, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Work Experience

Research Professor, East China Normal University (2022–2025)

Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University, USA (2021–2022)

Research Focus

Dr. Gao’s research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing. He leverages multimodal signals from wearable and edge devices—including motion, physiological, and semantic data—to model complex human activities, enabling interaction-aware sensing and user intent inference. His work emphasizes human–machine collaboration in everyday contexts, designing adaptive interaction paradigms and intelligent system prototypes that foster seamless cooperation and symbiosis between humans and intelligent systems (e.g., robots, edge devices). His research also advances the integration of multimodal sensing and artificial intelligence in healthcare and daily life applications.

Selected Publications

[1]Ren J, Zheng R, Zhang W, She D, Bai Y, Jin Z, Gao Y. Motion2Press: Cross Model Learning from IMU to Plantar Pressure for Gait Analysis. Ubicomp 2025 (CCF-A).

[2]Xiao Y, Huang Z, Ren J, Bai Y, Song H, Jin Z, Gao Y. Wrist2Finger: Sensing Fingertip Force for Force-Aware Hand Interaction with a Ring-Watch Wearable. UIST 2025 (CCF-A).

[3]Liu L, Ren J, Fan Z, Li C, He G, Wang C, Gao Y., Li C. SandTouch: Empowering Virtual Sand Art in VR with AI Guidance and Emotional Relief. CHI 2025 (CCF-A).

[4]Gao Y., Zhang W, Ren J, Zheng R, Jin Y, Wu D, Shu L, Xu X, Jin Z. PressInPose: Integrating Pressure and Inertial Sensors for Full-Body Pose Estimation in Activities. Ubicomp 2025 (CCF-A).

[5]Gao Y., Jin Y, Choi S, Li J, Pan J, Shu L, Zhou C, Jin Z. Sonicface: Tracking Facial Expressions using a Commodity Microphone Array. Ubicomp 2022 (CCF-A).

[6]Jin Y*, Gao Y*, Zhu Y, Wang W, Li J, Choi S, Li Z, Chauhan J, Dey A, Jin Z. Sonicasl: An Acoustic-Based Sign Language Gesture Recognizer using Earphones. Ubicomp 2021 (CCF-A).

[7]Gao Y., Wang W, Jin Y, Zhou C, Xu W, Jin Z. ThermoTag: A Hidden ID of 3D Printers for Fingerprinting and Watermarking. IEEE TIFS 2021 (SCI-Q1).

[8]Gao Y., Jin Y, Chauhan J, Choi S, Li J, Jin Z. Voice in Ear: Spoofing-Resistant and Passphrase-Independent Body Sound Authentication. Ubicomp 2021 (CCF-A).

[9]Gao Y., Jin Y, Li J, Choi S, Jin Z. Echowhisper: Exploring an Acoustic-Based Silent Speech Interface for Smartphone Users. Ubicomp 2020 (CCF-A).

[10]Gao Y., Wang W, Phoha V.V., Sun W, Jin Z. EarEcho: Using Ear Canal Echo for Wearable Authentication. Ubicomp 2019 (CCF-A).

[11]Gao Y., Li B, Wang W, Xu W, Zhou C, Jin Z. Watching and Safeguarding Your 3D Printer: Online Process Monitoring against Cyber-Physical Attacks. Ubicomp 2018 (CCF-A).