Xiangyi Cheng Brings AR to Classrooms and Hospitals

Cheng’s work spans robotics, intelligent systems, human-machine interplay and artificial intelligence. It has functions in patient-specific surgical planning, an method whereby therapy is personalized to the anatomy and scientific wants of every particular person.

Her analysis additionally covers wearables for rehabilitation and augmented-reality-enhanced engineering education.

The throughline of her profession is sound judgment primarily based on essential pondering. She urges her college students to keep away from the temptation to simply accept the solutions they’re given by AI with out cross-checking them towards their very own foundational understanding of the subject material.

“AI may give you concepts,” Cheng says, “nevertheless it ought to by no means lead your pondering.”

That precept—honed by uncertainty, disciplinary shifts, and hard-earned confidence—has made Cheng an rising voice in utilized clever techniques and a considerate educator making ready college students for an AI-saturated world.

From Xi’an to Beijing: A thoughts drawn to mathematics

Cheng, born in Xi’an, China, grew up in a household formed by her mother and father’ disparate careers. Her father was a mining engineer, and her mom taught Chinese language and literature at a highschool.

“That distinction between logical and literary pondering helped me perceive myself early,” Cheng says. “I preferred math, and STEM felt pure to me.”

A number of lecturers bolstered her inclination, she says, notably a math instructor whose calm, honest method emphasised reasoning over punishments equivalent to detention for misbehavior or failure to finish assignments.

“It wasn’t about being proper,” Cheng says. “It was about pondering clearly.”

She moved to Beijing in 2011 to attend the China University of Mining and Technology , the place she studied mechanical engineering. After graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in 2015, she was uncertain the place the sector would take her.

An IEEE paper modified her trajectory

Later in 2015, she traveled to the United States to review at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland.

She initially seen the transfer as exploratory slightly than a long-term dedication.

“I wasn’t enthusiastic about a Ph.D.,” she says. “I wasn’t even positive analysis was for me.”

That uncertainty shifted in 2017, when Cheng submitted her “IntuBot: Design and Prototyping of a Robotic Intubation Device” paper to the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)—which was accepted.

“AI may give you extra prospects, however pondering remains to be our accountability.”

Intubation is a process through which an endotracheal tube is inserted right into a affected person’s airway—normally by the mouth—to assist them breathe. As a result of inserting the tube appropriately just isn’t easy and normally have to be carried out rapidly, it requires coaching. That’s why analysis into robotic or assisted intubation techniques focuses on enhancing velocity, accuracy, and security.

She introduced her findings at ICRA in 2018, giving her early publicity to a worldwide analysis neighborhood.

“That acceptance gave me confidence,” she remembers. “It confirmed me I may contribute to the sector.”

Her advisor at Case Western inspired her to change from the mechanical engineering grasp’s program to the Ph.D. observe. When the advisor moved to Texas A&M University, in Faculty Station, in 2019, Cheng determined to switch. She accomplished her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M in 2022.

Though she didn’t earn a level from Case Western, she credit her expertise there with clarifying her skilled path.

Shortly after graduating along with her Ph.D., Cheng was employed as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio Northern University, in Ada. She left in 2024 to turn out to be an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount.

Engineering for the physique—and the classroom

Cheng’s analysis focuses on human-centered engineering, notably in health care. Certainly one of her main initiatives addresses syndactyly, a congenital situation through which a new child’s fingers are fused at delivery. Surgeons depend on their expertise to estimate the scale and form of pores and skin grafts to be taken from one other a part of the physique for the corrective surgery.

She is creating know-how to scan the affected person’s hand, extract anatomical landmarks, and use finite aspect evaluation—a computer-based technique for predicting how a bodily object will behave beneath real-world situations—to find out the optimum graft dimension and form.

Xiangyi Cheng designs human-centered clever techniques with functions in well being care and schooling.Xiangyi Cheng

“Everybody’s hand is completely different,” Cheng says. “So the surgical procedure ought to be customized.”

One other mission facilities on creating sensible gloves to help with hand rehabilitation, pairing the unaffected hand with the injured one so the individual’s pure movement will help information therapy.

She is also exploring augmented reality in engineering schooling, utilizing immersive visualization and AI instruments to assist college students grasp three-dimensional ideas which are troublesome to convey by conventional studying instruments. Such visualization lets college students see and work together with a digital world as in the event that they’re inside it as an alternative of viewing it on a flat display.

Instructing stability in an AI-driven world

Regardless of working on the forefront of AI-enabled techniques, Cheng cautions her college students to be even handed of their use of the know-how in order that they don’t depend on it too closely.

“AI just isn’t all the time proper and ideal,” she says. “You continue to want to have the ability to choose whether or not the solutions it offers are appropriate.”

As AI continues to reshape engineering, Cheng stays grounded in a easy precept, she says: “We should always use these instruments. However we should always by no means allow them to substitute our judgment. AI may give you extra prospects, however pondering remains to be our accountability.”

In her lab and classroom, Cheng prioritizes unbiased pondering, essential analysis, and persistence. Lots of her analysis college students are undergraduates, and she or he encourages them to take possession of their work—planning forward, testing concepts, and studying from failure.

“The scholars who succeed don’t surrender simply,” she says.

What she finds most rewarding, she says, is watching college students mature. Reserved first-year college students usually turn out to be assured seniors who can current complicated work and handle demanding initiatives.

“Attending to witness that transformation is why I educate,” she says.

For college students contemplating engineering, Cheng gives simple recommendation: “Deal with arithmetic. Engineering seems to be hands-on, however math is the inspiration behind every thing.”

With apply and persistence, she says, college students can succeed and discover which means within the area.

Why IEEE continues to matter

Cheng joined IEEE in 2017, the 12 months she submitted her first paper to ICRA. The group has remained central to her professional development, she says.

She has served as a reviewer for IEEE journals and conferences together with Robotics and Automation Letters, Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, Transactions on Robotics, the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, and ICRA.

IEEE’s interdisciplinary scope aligns naturally along with her work, she says, including that the group is “one of many few locations that really welcomes analysis throughout boundaries.”

Extra personally, IEEE helped her see a future she had not initially imagined.

“That first convention was a turning level,” she says. “It helped me understand I belonged.”