Yinsen Jia
Train the same, remain the same 🦾
Yinsen Jia
Ph.D. Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Duke University
Member,
General Robotics Lab (GRL)
LinkedIn / X / GitHub / Google Scholar
I am always interested in working with highly motivated undergraduate and master's students. If you are at Duke and want to discuss research opportunities, please feel free to email me!
I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University advised by Professor Boyuan Chen. My research lies at the intersection of robot learning, control, and manipulation, with a focus on how robots can use temporal structure, prior knowledge, multimodal feedback, and scalable simulation to act robustly in dynamic, contact-rich environments. More broadly, I aim to build robots that can autonomously interact with, understand, and manipulate the physical world—as capable assistants and trustworthy friends 🤖.
I obtained my master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Columbia University (2022) and my bachelor's degree in Electrical and Automation Engineering from Nanjing Normal University (2020). I was also a short-term student at Rice University majoring in Electrical Engineering (2021).
Before joining Duke, I was a research assistant in the Robot Learning and Control Group at Nanjing University with Professor Chunlin Chen and led the UAV Communication Link Denoising Group in Jiangsu Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering with Professor Wei Yan. During my master's study, I worked with Professor Shuran Song in Columbia Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab, and interned as a deep learning researcher at Kodiak Robotics.
Highlights
Temporal self-imitation learning.
Time controls robot behavior.
A general simulation scene generator.
News
- [2025-08] Our paper "Tactile-based Object Retrieval From Granular Media" got accepted to Autonomous Robots!
- [2024-09] Our paper "ClutterGen: A Cluttered Scene Generator for Robot Learning" got accepted to CoRL 2024!
- [2024-06] The paper "Dynamic Grasping with a Learned Meta-Controller" got accepted to IEEE CASE 2024!
- [2023-08] Started my Ph.D. journey at Duke!!
- [2023-02] I was granted the Master of Science Award of Excellence by Columbia University.
- [2022-11] The paper "Dynamic Grasping with a Learned Meta-Controller" won NeurIPS Registration Award at the 5th Robot Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2022.
- [2022-05] I joined Kodiak Robotics as a deep learning intern mentored by Dr. Collin Otis.
- [2022-05] I was honored as an M.S. EE Honors Student at Columbia University!
- [2021-09] I started my master's study at Columbia University, majoring in Electrical Engineering - Data Driven Analysis and Computation.
- [2021-01] I received Rice ECE Future Star Scholarship!
- [2020-10] The paper "Path Planning with Autonomous Obstacle Avoidance..." got accepted to IEEE CNSC 2020.
- [2020-06] I graduated from Nanjing Normal University and was honored as an Outstanding Graduated Student (5%).
- [2020-01] The paper "An UAV Wireless Communication Noise Suppression Method..." got accepted to Radio Science.
- [2019-12] I joined Robot Learning and Control Group of Nanjing University as a research assistant.
- [2019-07] The paper "Study on the Influence of Electromagnetic Pulse..." got accepted to American Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
- [2019-06] The paper "Investigation on conducted EMI noise source..." got accepted to IET Power Electronics.
- [2018-12] I received the NARI Group Scholarship!
Publications
*: indicating equal contribution. You can also check my Google Scholar profile.
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Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2024
Workshop on Mastering Robot Manipulation at CoRL, 2024
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Autonomous Robots, 2025
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Workshop on Robot Learning at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2022
IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 2024
🏆 NeurIPS Registration Award
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IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (CNSC), 2020
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American Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2019
Projects
"Balanced Gentleman" bipedal robot, 2024.
Hyperbolic model for object detection, 2021.
Citi-Bin: An intelligent garbage bin, 2022.
- "Balanced Gentleman": A bipedal robot with a balanced arm (Robot Studio Course Project, 2024) - advised by Professor Boyuan Chen.
- Adaptive grasp in dynamic environments (COMS6998-5 Robotic Learning Course Project, 2022) - advised by Professor Shuran Song
- Hierarchical object detection (COMS6998-1 Representation Learning Course Project, 2021) - advised by Professor Carl Vondrick
- Learning the Predictability of the Future (EECS6691 Advanced Deep Learning Course Project, 2022) - advised by Professor Zoran Kostić
Teaching
- Robot Learning, Duke University - Fall 2025
- Microcomputer Principles and Interface Technology, Nanjing Normal University - Fall 2019
Talks
- Poster presentation at Conference of Robot Learning (CoRL) 2024 - November 7 · Munich, Germany
- Poster presentation at Northeast Robotics Colloquium (NERC) 2022 - October 8 · UMass Lowell
Lifestyle
Duke Halloween.
2023.11, Duke University.
CoRL 2024.
2024.11, Munich.
Columbia Boat Cruise Social.
2022.09, Columbia.
Shoot like him.
2022.08, Los Angeles.