Dr Yang Gao

Professor Yang Gao is a Professor of Robotics and heads the Centre for Robotics Research within the Department of Engineering at King's College London. She brings over 20 years of research experience in developing space robotics and autonomous systems, in which she has been the Principal Investigator of nationally and internationally teamed projects funded by European Space Agency (ESA), UK Space Agency, UK Research Innovation, Royal Academy of Engineering, European Commission, as well as industries. Yang is also actively involved in design and development of real-world space missions such as ESA ExoMars, Proba3 and VMMO (lunar ice mapper), UK's CLEAR, MoonLITE and Moonraker, and CNSA Chang'E3. Yang's work has been applied to several non-space sectors including nuclear, utility and agriculture through technology transfer and spin offs.

Yang is an 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 also received the Mulan Award in 2019 for her contributions to science, technology and engineering. Within her research field, Yang serves the international R&D community through various leadership roles, such as being the Editor-in-Chief of Wiley’s Journal of Field Robotics, the Co-Chair of IEEE Robotics & Automation Society’s Technical Committee on Space Robotics, and the Mentor of the United Nations’ Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Space4Women program, etc.

Prior to joining King's in August 2023, Yang spent nearly 19 years at the University of Surrey where she founded and led the multi-award winning STAR LAB (Space Technology for Autonomous & Robotic systems Laboratory). Before that, she was an awardee of the prestigious Singapore Millennium Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and worked on intelligent and autonomous vehicles. She gained the B.Eng. (First Class Honours) degree and Ph.D. degree from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2000 and 2003 respectively.