Harbin Institute of Technology

PhD Admissions Update | Prof.Jie Liu's Research Group

Founded in 2019, the Research Center of Ubiquitous Computing and Intelligent Systems of Harbin Institute of Technology (hereinafter referred to as the Center) is an interdisciplinary research institute established relying on the Faculty of Computing, the Department of Control Science and Engineering of the School of Astronautics, and the Harbin Institute of Technology for Artificial Intelligence. In the same year of its establishment, the Center was approved as the Key Laboratory of IoT Intelligent Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Relying on the research team of the Center, it was approved as the State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technologies and Systems and the National Open Innovation Platform for Next Generation Artificial Intelligence on Smart Farm. The Center focuses on the areas of the Internet of Things, intelligent sensing, intelligent systems, and swarm intelligence, conducting research on relevant theories, technologies, and applications.

(Available for contact all year round)

Jie Liu, Professor at the Faculty of Computing, HIT, Director of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Fellow, ACM Distinguished Scientist, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technologies and Systems, Director of Key Laboratory of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Artificial Intelligence for Internet of Things, Director of the Key Laboratory of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Northeast Large-scale Smart Agriculture, Doctoral supervisor in both Computer Science and Control Engineering.

He received his B.E. and M.E. degrees from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University, and his Ph.D. degree in EECS from the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a principal researcher and partner at Microsoft Research and made outstanding contributions in areas including data center intelligence, mobile terminal and IoT positioning, intelligent perception services, personalized recommendation engines, smart retail, and smart environments. He is a world-renowned academic leader in the fields of Intelligent Internet of Things (AIoT) and Hybrid Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), and an internationally recognized expert in AI sensor fusion, data center optimization, and energy-efficient computing. He has authored or co-authored over 150 papers, holds more than 70 granted international patents with over 40 additional pending applications, and has received seven Best Paper Awards and one Best Demo Award. He serves as an Associate Editor for several leading IEEE journals, including IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, and has held roles as Steering Committee Member and Chair for numerous premier conferences in related fields. His honors include the IEEE TCCPS Distinguished Leadership Award, the Microsoft Gold Star Award, the Xerox PARC Award for Technological Excellence, the UC Berkeley Leon O. Chua Award, and the Tsinghua University Top-Grade Scholarship for Outstanding Students.

Research directions：

Embodied Intelligent Systems: humanoid robotics, autonomous driving, 5G/satellite communications, edge computing, operating systems, brain-inspired computing, and related technologies.

AI Theory and Methodology: foundation models, data construction and governance, embedded intelligence, machine learning, federated learning, reasoning methods, and related areas.

Intelligent Sensing Technologies: novel sensors and sensing paradigms, computer vision, multimodal perception, remote sensing, and related technologies.

AI-Driven Interdisciplinary Integration: cross-fertilization of AI theory and technologies with fields such as agriculture, industry, logistics, and human-computer interaction.

Research Group Members

Priority enrollment directions：

Jie Liu

Director of the Center, Dean of Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Harbin Institute of Technology, Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor

Personal Homepage: https://drjieliu.github.io/

Zhijun Li

Deputy Director of the Center, Professor at the Faculty of Computing, Ph.D. Supervisor, National High-Level Talent, Chief Scientist of MIIT 'Ranking and Hanging' Project, Leader of National High-Quality Online Open Course Operating System, Best Paper Award Winner of Mobicom (Top Conference on Mobile Computing)

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/lizhijun

Ling Wang

Professor at the Faculty of Computing, Ph.D. in Computer and Electronic Engineering, University of Nevada, USA. Research areas: Autonomous driving, smart agriculture, etc.

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/lingwang

Siyao Cheng

Deputy Director of the Center, Professor at the Faculty of Computing, Ph.D. Supervisor, Winner of CCF Excellent Doctoral Dissertation, ACM SIGMOD China Academic Rising Star, Director/Deputy Secretary-General of Youth Working Committee of ACM SIGBED China

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/ChengSiyao

Ran Meng

Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor. Research direction: Space-air-ground integrated perception and intelligent computing for high-value real-world problems (agriculture, disasters, cities, low-altitude, energy). Introduced to HIT as a high-level talent in 2024; selected as Heilongjiang Provincial High-Level Talent and Leader of Professional and Technical Leading Team (Computer Science and Technology) in 2025. Responsible for the 'Smart Agriculture' minor of HIT Computer Science and Technology, and concurrently Director of Agricultural Remote Sensing of the State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technology and Systems.

In the past three years, he has presided over and participated in projects including National Natural Science Foundation of China, Heilongjiang Key R&D Program, Central Government Guides Local Science and Technology Development Special Project, and Beidahuang Group Science and Technology Service Special Project. He is actively engaged in academic services: invited Associate Editor of Remote Sensing of Environment (RSE, No.1 non-review journal in the field), Associate Editor of Remote Sensing, Youth Editor of Journal of Harbin Institute of Technology, Executive Member of CCF Digital Agriculture Chapter, Member of China Committee of International Society for Digital Earth – Digital Agriculture Chapter, Member of Big Data Chapter of Chinese Society for Agricultural Machinery, Member of Smart Agriculture Chapter of China Green Development Association.

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/mengran

Yan Wang

Researcher, Ph.D. Supervisor. Main research direction: Intelligent unmanned systems and cross-domain collaboration technology. Formerly worked at a research institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, expert in naval unmanned equipment technology, invited lecturer on unmanned systems, scientist of Key Laboratory of Army Border and Coastal Defense Control. He has undertaken a number of key model R&D tasks.

Research areas: Intelligent unmanned systems and cross-domain collaboration technology.

Personal Homepage: https://homepage.hit.edu.cn/wangyan0566?lang=zh

Stamoulis Dimitrios

Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor. He holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master’s degree from McGill University. Research direction: Multi-agent artificial intelligence systems for remote sensing applications. Formerly Chief Research Manager at Microsoft Corporation and Associate Researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published 21 papers in top conferences and journals as the first author or corresponding author.

Awards include AIoTSys Young Scientist Award, Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University Department Graduate Fellowship. The geospatial technology he developed has been commercially deployed in large-scale Microsoft Azure cloud systems.

Personal Homepage: https://dstamoulis.github.io/

Feng Li

Associate Researcher at the Faculty of Computing, B.E. from Tsinghua University, Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University, USA. Member of the State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technology and Systems, Member of ACM SIGBED China, Member of Artificial Intelligence Committee of Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering, Member of Smart Agriculture Chapter of Chinese Society of Agronomy.

Research direction: Application technology of embedded artificial intelligence in smart agriculture, smart energy and social governance.

Personal Homepage: https://homepage.hit.edu.cn/lifeng?lang=zh

Hao Zhang

Associate Researcher at the Faculty of Computing, Ph.D. from University of Science and Technology of China. Executive Member of CCF Internet of Things Chapter, Executive Member of CCF Digital Agriculture Chapter.

Research areas: Edge intelligence, distributed deep learning/federated learning, etc.

Personal Homepage: https://homepage.hit.edu.cn/zhh1000

Jingchi Jiang

Vice Dean of School of Agricultural Artificial Intelligence, HIT; Director of AI Model Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technology and Systems; Member of CCF Digital Agriculture Chapter, Member of Agricultural Modeling and Simulation Chapter of China Simulation Federation.

He has presided over more than 10 national and provincial/ministerial projects including National Key R&D Program and National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has published more than 50 papers in important AI journals and conferences such as TKDE, TIP, KBS, AAAI, ACL, and authorized 14 patents. Leader of the 'Tiangong Kaiwu' Agricultural Large Model R&D Team. Awards include BIS International Invention Fair Highest Award (Diamond Award), Heilongjiang Province First Prize of Scientific and Technological Achievement Transformation, SCO Digital Tools, etc.

Research direction: Multimodal large models, agent optimization scheduling.

Personal Homepage: https://homepage.hit.edu.cn/jiangjingchi

Dongbo Li

Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computing, Postdoc at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ph.D. from HIT. Master Supervisor of Computer Science and Technology/Intelligent Science and Technology. Member of CCF Internet of Things Chapter/Digital Agriculture Chapter, Member of ACM SIGBED CN Chapter.

Research areas: Embodied intelligence (multimodal perception, VLA/VLM, edge intelligence) and satellite AI (multi-agent reinforcement learning, semantic communication, computing-network convergence).

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/lidongbo

Rongqiang Zhao

Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computing, Ph.D. Supervisor of both Computer Science and Technology/Intelligent Science and Engineering, Ph.D. from Harbin Institute of Technology. Executive Head of the First HIT-HKU Excellent Class, Member of the State Key Laboratory of Smart Farm Technology and Systems.

Research areas: Intelligent detection and perception, embodied intelligence, off-road autonomous driving, etc.

Personal Homepage: https://homepage.hit.edu.cn/zhaorongqiang

Control Science and Engineering Supervisors：

Jie Liu

Director of the Center, Dean of Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Harbin Institute of Technology, Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor

Personal Homepage: https://drjieliu.github.io/

Jing Jin

Deputy Director/Deputy Director of Teaching Committee, Department of Control Science and Engineering, School of Astronautics; Vice Dean of Institute of Artificial Intelligence; Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/jinjing

Qiang Wang

Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor, Department of Control Science and Engineering; Member of IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society

Personal Homepage: http://homepage.hit.edu.cn/wangqiang

Contact Information：

Please send your application email to: hit_aiotlab@163.com

You can also contact a specific supervisor directly (contact information is available on their personal homepage).

Prof. Liu's research group

Prof. Liu's research group