Yang Zhang

Yang Zhang

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

56-147L Engr. IV

Email: yangzhang@ucla.edu

Websites

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Prof. Zhang's research focuses on enhancing ambient computing devices with powerful perceptual and interaction capabilities, fostering practical, inclusive, and sustainable intelligence that assist users in the physical environment. Specifically, he invents sensing technologies and energy-harvesting systems deployed in user environments, contributing to the advancement of the Internet-of-Things, personal informatics, and assistive and autonomous technologies.
RESEARCH AND INTERESTS
  • Human-computer interaction, sensing and interaction techniques, accessibility, sustainability
NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS
  • Xue Wang, Zixiong Su, Jun Rekimoto, and Yang Zhang. 2024. Watch Your Mouth: Silent Speech Recognition with Depth Sensing. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 24), Honorable Mention Award.
  • William Huang, Sam Ghahremani, Siyou Pei, and Yang Zhang. 2024. WheelPose: Data Synthesis Techniques to Improve Pose Estimation Performance on Wheelchair Users. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 24).
  • Siyou Pei, Pradyumna Chari, Xue Wang, Xiaoying Yang, Achuta Kadambi, and Yang Zhang. 2022. ForceSight: Non-Contact Force Sensing with Laser Speckle Imaging. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 22).
  • Xiaoying Yang, Jacob Sayono, Jess Xu, Jiahao "Nick" Li, Josiah Hester, and Yang Zhang. 2022. MiniKers: Interaction-Powered Smart Environment Automation. In the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT 22).
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
  • Distinguished Paper Award for Mites, ACM IMWUT 2024.
  • Honorable Mention Award for Watch Your Mouth, ACM CHI 2024.
  • Honorable Mention Award for ForceSight Demo, ACM UIST 2022.
  • Honorable Mention Award for Hand Interfaces, ACM CHI 2022.
  • Distinguished Paper Award for OptoSense, ACM IMWUT 2021.
  • Finalist for Vibrosight++, Fast Company Innovation by Design Award 2021.
  • Best Paper Award for Wireality, ACM CHI 2020.
  • Honorable Mention for ActiTouch, Fast Company Innovation by Design Award 2020. Honorable Mention Award for Posture-Aware Pen+Touch Interactions, ACM CHI 2019. Honorable Mention Award for Interferi, ACM CHI 2019.
  • Honorable Mention for Pulp Nonfiction, Fast Company Innovation by Design Award 2019 . Best Paper Award for Wall++, ACM CHI 2018.
  • Honorable Mention Award for Vibrosight, ACM UIST 2018.
  • Finalist for LumiWatch, Fast Company Innovation by Design Award 2018.
  • Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship Winner, 2017.