Zih-Yun (Sarah) Chiu

Zih-Yun (Sarah) Chiu

Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University | PhD, UC San Diego

About me [CV]

If you are interested in joining us as a PhD student, please apply to the CS PhD program by December 15, 2025!

I am actively recruiting students at all levels (undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D.)! If you are interested in joining my research group, please read this page and contact me by email.

I am a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. I am also a member of the Johns Hopkins Data Science and AI Institute and the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics. I received my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California San Diego, where I was advised by Michael Yip.

My goal is to develop the next generation of intelligent robots that can see, plan, move, and learn as skilled medical professionals. My research tackles four fundamental challenges:

  1. How can robots understand medical environments?
  2. How can medical knowledge inform robots’ movements?
  3. How can robots learn medical skills by observing others and continuously accumulating their knowledge over time?
  4. How can the precision, dexterity, and intelligence pioneered in medical robotics create more capable robots everywhere?

I aim to answer these questions from the following two perspectives:

  1. The mathematical modeling of various medical and general knowledge and how these models empower robots with the ability to operate in complex medical environments with precision, safety, and efficiency
  2. The seamless integration of robotic perception, planning, control, and learning that unlocks the full potential of autonomous agents in challenging and dynamic settings

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