Yifei Yuan

Ph.D. Candidate · BioDynamics Lab

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Biomedical Engineering

NJIT & Rutgers, Newark, NJ

Hi, I’m Yifei Yuan (袁一飞), a Ph.D. student in the Joint Biomedical Engineering PhD Program at NJIT & Rutgers. My research sits at the intersection of reinforcement learning, robotics, biomechanics, and human movement in simulation, with a focus on rehabilitation exoskeletons.

I am especially interested in learning control policies in simulation and transferring them to real-world wearable robots that can assist and restore human movement.

I’m always happy to connect with people who share these interests. Feel free to reach out at yy72@njit.edu or connect with me on LinkedIn .

I’m currently open to internship and research collaboration opportunities. If you’re working on something related, I’d love to hear from you.

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news

Sep 27, 2026 Heading to Pittsburgh, PA to present at IEEE/RSJ IROS 2026 (September 27 – October 1).
Aug 01, 2026 Presented at IEEE BioRob 2026 in Edmonton, Canada.
May 15, 2026 Passed my Ph.D. proposal defense.
Jun 15, 2025 Passed my Ph.D. qualifying exam.
Aug 15, 2024 Joined the BioDynamics Lab at NJIT to start my Ph.D. 🎉

selected publications

  1. IEEE
    Staged Multi-Agent Training (SMAT) for Hip Exoskeletons: Metabolic and Biomechanical Validation of a Simulation-Trained Co-Adaptive Controller
    arXiv
    Yifei Yuan, Jakob Wolf, Ghaith Androwis, and 1 more author
    IEEE, Under Review, 2026
  2. IROS
    SMAT: Staged Multi-Agent Training for Co-Adaptive Exoskeleton Control
    arXiv
    Yifei Yuan, Ghaith Androwis, and Xianlian Zhou
    In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2026
  3. BioRob
    Gait Asymmetry from Unilateral Weakness and Improvement With Ankle Assistance: a Reinforcement Learning based Simulation Study
    arXiv
    Yifei Yuan, Ghaith Androwis, and Xianlian Zhou
    In IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), Oral Presentation, 2026
  4. ICNR
    Sim-to-Real Deployment of a Deep Reinforcement Learning Controller for a Lower-Limb Rehabilitation Exoskeleton
    Yifei Yuan, Erick H. Nunez, Easter S. Suviseshamuthu, and 3 more authors
    In International Conference on NeuroRehabilitation (ICNR), 2026