Human-Centered AI · Wearable Intelligence · Human-Robot Interaction

Yang Gao 高杨

Associate Professor

South China University of Technology

Yang Gao is an Associate Professor in the School of Future Technology at South China University of Technology (SCUT). He is a member of the Human-Centered AI Lab within the School of Future Technology. Prior to his current role, he was a Research Professor at East China Normal University from September 2022 to August 2025 and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Northwestern University from 2021 to 2022. His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, Wearable Computing, and human-centered AI. He leads the Human-Computer Interaction group at SCUT. He has been selected for the Shanghai Leading Talent Program (Overseas Young Talents) and the Guangzhou Innovation and Entrepreneurship Young Top Talent Program, and serves as principal investigator of a Young Scientists Fund project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of ACM IMWUT, a guest editor for special issues of multiple international journals, and an executive committee member of the CCF Technical Committees on Pervasive Computing and Human-Computer Interaction.

gaoyang2025 [AT] scut.edu.cnGitHubGoogle ScholarORCID
Publications Openings CV
36Publications
4Projects
10News Updates
Yang Gao

Students

Openings / Internship

I am looking for self-motivated Ph.D. and Master's students with backgrounds in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human-Computer Interaction, wearable systems, sensing hardware, or circuit design.

Interested students are welcome to contact me at gaoyang2025 [AT] scut.edu.cn with a brief research statement and CV.

Updates

News

Background

Education

  • PhD, University at Buffalo, United States 2018-2021
  • PhD, Binghamton University, United States 2015-2017
  • MS, Steven Institute of Technology, United States 2012-2014
  • BS, UESTC, China 2008-2012

Experience

Work

  • Postdoc, Northwestern University, United States 2021-2022
  • Research Professor, East China Normal University, China 2022-2025
  • Associate Professor, South China University of Technology 2025-present

Courses

Teaching

  • Natural Language Processing 2025–2026
  • Cloud Computing and Big Data 2025–2026
  • Computer Organization 2024–2025
  • Data Visualization and Interaction 2023–2024

Research

Research Interests

My research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing. I study how wearable sensing, physiological signals, motion data, and multimodal large language models can support activity understanding, intent inference, affect-aware interaction, and human-robot collaboration.

  • Human-Computer-Interaction
  • Pervasive Computing
  • Multi-modal LLM
  • Human-Robot-Interaction
  • Wearable Computing
  • Affective Computing

Output

Selected Publications 36

Publications are grouped by year. Yang Gao is highlighted in author lists. † Equal contribution. * Corresponding author.

2026

13 papers

2025

7 papers

2024

2 papers

Multi-modal fusion in ergonomic health: bridging visual and pressure for sitting posture detection

Qinxiao Quan, Yang Gao, Yang Bai, Zhanpeng Jin

CCF Transactions on Pervasive Computing and Interaction (TPCI, 2024)

TPCI 2025 Best Paper

As the contradiction between the pursuit of health and the increasing duration of sedentary office work intensifies, there has been a growing focus on maintaining correct sitting posture while working. This paper introduces a sitting posture recognition system …

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2023 and Earlier

14 papers

SignRing: Continuous American Sign Language Recognition Using IMU Rings and Virtual IMU Data

Jiyang Li, Lin Huang, Siddharth Shah, Sean J. Jones, Yincheng Jin, Dingran Wang, Adam Russell, Seokmin Choi, Yang Gao, Junsong Yuan, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2023)

Sign language is a natural language widely used by Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals. Advanced wearables are developed to recognize sign language automatically. However, they are limited by the lack of labeled data, which leads to a small vocabulary …

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An End-to-End Energy-Efficient Approach for Intake Detection With Low Inference Time Using Wrist-Worn Sensor

Boyang Wei, Shibo Zhang, Xingjian Diao, Qiuyang Xu, Yang Gao, Nabil Alshurafa

IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (IEEE JBHI, 2023)

Automated detection of intake gestures with wearable sensors has been a critical area of research for advancing our understanding and ability to intervene in people's eating behavior. Numerous algorithms have been developed and evaluated in terms of accuracy. …

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SmartASL: \"Point-of-Care\" Comprehensive ASL Interpreter Using Wearables

Yincheng Jin, Shibo Zhang, Yang Gao, Xuhai Xu, Seokmin Choi, Zhengxiong Li, Henry J. Adler, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2023)

Sign language builds up an important bridge between the d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) and hearing people. Regrettably, most hearing people face challenges in comprehending sign language, necessitating sign language translation. However, state-of-the-art …

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EarCommand: \"Hearing\" Your Silent Speech Commands In Ear

Yincheng Jin, Yang Gao, Xuhai Xu, Seokmin Choi, Jiyang Li, Feng Liu, Zhengxiong Li, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2022)

Intelligent speech interfaces have been developing vastly to support the growing demands for convenient control and interaction with wearable/earable and portable devices. To avoid privacy leakage during speech interactions and strengthen the resistance to …

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PPGface: Like What You Are Watching? Earphones Can \"Feel\" Your Facial Expressions

Seokmin Choi, Yang Gao, Yincheng Jin, Se Jun Kim, Jiyang Li, Wenyao Xu, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2022)

Recognition of facial expressions has been widely explored to represent people's emotional states. Existing facial expression recognition systems primarily rely on external cameras which make it less accessible and efficient in many real-life scenarios to …

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Detecting Screen Presence with Activity-Oriented RGB Camera in Egocentric Videos

Amit Adate, Soroush Shahi, Rawan Alharbi, Sougata Sen, Yang Gao, Aggelos K Katsaggelos, Nabil Alshurafa

2022 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops)

Screen time is associated with several health risk behaviors including mindless eating, sedentary behavior, and decreased academic performance. Screen time behavior is traditionally assessed with self-report measures, which are known to be burdensome, …

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SonicFace: Tracking Facial Expressions Using a Commodity Microphone Array

Yang Gao, Yincheng Jin, Seokmin Choi, Jiyang Li, Junjie Pan, Lin Shu, Chi Zhou, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2021)

Accurate recognition of facial expressions and emotional gestures is promising to understand the audience's feedback and engagement on the entertainment content. Existing methods are primarily based on various cameras or wearable sensors, which either raise …

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SonicASL: An Acoustic-based Sign Language Gesture Recognizer Using Earphones

Yincheng Jin, Yang Gao, Yanjun Zhu, Wei Wang, Jiyang Li, Seokmin Choi, Zhangyu Li, Jagmohan Chauhan, Anind K. Dey, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2021)

We propose SonicASL, a real-time gesture recognition system that can recognize sign language gestures on the fly, leveraging front-facing microphones and speakers added to commodity earphones worn by someone facing the person making the gestures. In a user …

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Voice In Ear: Spoofing-Resistant and Passphrase-Independent Body Sound Authentication

Yang Gao, Yincheng Jin, Jagmohan Chauhan, Seokmin Choi, Jiyang Li, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2021)

With the rapid growth of wearable computing and increasing demand for mobile authentication scenarios, voiceprint-based authentication has become one of the prevalent technologies and has already presented tremendous potentials to the public. However, it is …

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ThermoTag: A Hidden ID of 3D Printers for Fingerprinting and Watermarking

Yang Gao, Wei Wang, Yincheng Jin, Chi Zhou, Wenyao Xu, Zhanpeng Jin

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (IEEE TIFS, 2021)

To address the increasing challenges of counterfeit detection and IP protection for 3D printing, we propose that every 3D printer holds unique fingerprinting features characterized by the thermodynamic properties of the extruder hot-end and can be used as a …

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EchoWhisper: Exploring an Acoustic-based Silent Speech Interface for Smartphone Users

Yang Gao, Yincheng Jin, Jiyang Li, Seokmin Choi, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2020)

With the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and mobile computing, intelligent speech interface has recently become one of the prevalent trends and has already presented huge potentials to the public. To address the privacy leakage issue during the speech …

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Heart Monitor Using Flexible Capacitive ECG Electrodes

Yang Gao, Varun V. Soman, Jack P. Lombardi, Pravakar Prasad Rajbhandari, Tara P. Dhakal, Dale G. Wilson, Mark D. Poliks, Kanad Ghose, James N. Turner, Zhanpeng Jin

IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (IEEE TIM, 2020)

Noninvasive sensors capable of measuring weak biopotential signals, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and EEG, and communicating results wirelessly to a host computer are developing rapidly. Some of them utilize capacitively coupled electrodes in an attempt to …

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EarEcho: Using Ear Canal Echo for Wearable Authentication

Yang Gao, Wei Wang, Vir V. Phoha, Wei Sun, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2019)

IMWUT 2019 Distinguished Papers Nominee

Smart wearable devices have recently become one of the major technological trends and been widely adopted by the general public. Wireless earphones, in particular, have seen a skyrocketing growth due to its great usability and convenience. With the goal of …

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Watching and Safeguarding Your 3D Printer: Online Process Monitoring Against Cyber-Physical Attacks

Yang Gao, Borui Li, Wei Wang, Wenyao Xu, Chi Zhou, Zhanpeng Jin

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT / UbiComp 2018)

The increasing adoption of 3D printing in many safety and mission critical applications exposes 3D printers to a variety of cyber attacks that may result in catastrophic consequences if the printing process is compromised. For example, the mechanical …

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Systems

Projects

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