Hongliang Ren

Professor Hongliang Ren received his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering (Specialized in Biomedical Engineering) from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2008. He has been navigating his academic journey through Chinese University of Hong Kong, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Children’s National Medical Center, United States, and National University of Singapore. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science & Engineering (T-ASE) and Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing (MBEC). He has served as an active organizer and contributor on the committees of numerous robotics conferences, including a variety of roles in the flagship IEEE Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), as well as other domain conferences such as ROBIO/BIOROB/ICIA. He served as publicity chair for ICRA 2017, concurrently as Organizing Chair for ICRA 2017 workshop on Surgical Robots, and video chair for ICRA 2021. He has delivered numerous invited keynotes/talks at flagship conferences/workshops at ICRA/IROS/ROBIO/ICIA. He is the recipient of IFMBE/IAMBE Early Career Award 2018, Interstellar Early Career Investigator Award 2018, and ICBHI Young Investigator Award 2019. He is also the recipient of numerous international conference awards, including Best Conference Paper Awards at IEEE ROBIO 2019, IEEE RCAR 2016, IEEE CCECE 2015, IEEE Cyber 2014, and IEEE ROBIO 2013.

Research Interest

• Biomedical Mechatronics
• Computer Integrated Interventional Systems
• Surgical Navigation and Planning systems
• Robotic and Sensing in Medicine
• Wireless Biomedical Sensor Networks

Education

• PhD The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2004 — 2008)

Companies

• Adjunct Associate Professor National University of Singapore (2021)
• Associate Professor The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2020)
• Assistant Professor National University of Singapore (2012 — 2020)
• Vice President Harvard Medical School Chinese Scholars and Scientists Association (2011 — 2014)
• Research Fellow Children's National Medical Center (2012 — 2012)
• Research Fellow Harvard University (2010 — 2012)
• Research Fellow Children's Hospital Boston (2010 — 2012)
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow Johns Hopkins University (2008 — 2010)

Honors and Awards

• 2018, Early Career Award from IFMBE/IAMBE (International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering/ International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering)
• 2018, Interstellar Initiative Award, by Japan Agency for Medical R&D and New York Academy of Sciences
• 2017, EMedic Global 2017 Gold Medal: Adaptive and Compliant Transoral Robotic Surgery (ACTORS)

Selected Publications

• Zhang, L.; Kumar, K. S.; He, H.; Cai, C. J.; He, X.; Gao, H.; Yue, S.; Li, C.; Seet, R. C.-S.; Ren, H.* & Ouyang, J.* Fully organic compliant dry electrodes self-adhesive to skin for long-term motion-robust epidermal biopotential monitoring, Nature Communications, 2020, 11, 4683
• Liao, X.; Song, W.; Zhang, X.; Yan, C.; Li, T.; Ren, H.; Liu, C.; Wang, Y. & Zheng, Y. (2020), 'A bioinspired analogous nerve towards artificial intelligence', Nature Communications 11(1), 268.
• Yang, H.; Yeow, B. S.; Li, Z.; Li, K.; Chang, T.-H.; Jing, L.; Li, Y.; Ho, J. S.; Ren, H. & Chen, P.-Y. (2019), 'Multifunctional metallic backbones for origami robotics with strain sensing and wireless communication capabilities', Science Robotics 4(33), eaax7020.
• Yang, H.; Yeow, B. S.; Chang, T.-H.; Li, K.; Fu, F.; Ren, H*. & Chen, P.-Y. (2019), 'Graphene Oxide-Enabled Synthesis of Metal Oxide Origamis for Soft Robotics', ACS Nano, 1-15.
• Li, T. L. & Ren, H*. (2019), 'Disposable FBG-based Tri-directional Force/Torque Sensor for Aspiration Instruments in Neurosurgery', IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 1--12.
• Islam, M.; Vibashan, V. S.; Lim, C. M. & Ren, H. (2021), 'ST-MTL: Spatio-Temporal multitask learning model to predict scanpath while tracking instruments in robotic surgery', Medical Image Analysis 67, 101837.
• Li, C.; Gu, X.; Xiao, X.; Lim, C. M. & Ren, H. (2020), 'Flexible Robot with Variable Stiffness in Transoral Surgery', IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 25(1), 1--10.
• Li, T.; Pan, A. & Ren, H. (2020), 'A High-Resolution Tri-axial Catheter-tip Force Sensor with Miniature Flexure and Suspended Optical Fibers', IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 67(6), 5101--5111.
• Li, T.; Pan, A. & Ren, H. (2020), 'Reaction Force Mapping by 3-Axis Tactile Sensing with Arbitrary Angles for Tissue Hard-inclusion Localization', IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 1-10.
• Xiao, B.; Xu, W.; Guo, J.; Lam, H.-K.; Jia, G.; Hong, W. & Ren, H. (2020), 'Depth Estimation of Hard Inclusions in Soft Tissue by Autonomous Robotic Palpation Using Deep Recurrent Neural Network', IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 1-9.
• Xiao, X.; Gao, H.; Li, C.; Qiu, L.; Kumar, K. S.; Cai, C. J.; Sewakram, B. B.; King, N. K. K. & Ren, H. (2020), 'Portable Body-attached Positioning Mechanism towards Robotic Needle Intervention', IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 25(2), 1105--1116.
• Xiao, X.; Li, C.; Gu, X.; Yan, Y.; Wu, Y.; Wu, Q.; Chiong, E. & Ren, H. (2020), 'A Tubular Dual-Roller Bending Mechanism towards Robotic Transurethral Prostate Biopsy', IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 1--1.
• Guo, J.; Shi, C. & Ren, H. (2019), 'Ultrasound-Assisted Guidance With Force Cues for Intravascular Interventions', IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering 16(1), 253--260.
• Islam, M.; Atputharuban, D. A.; Ramesh, R. & Ren, H. (2019), 'Real-Time Instrument Segmentation in Robotic Surgery Using Auxiliary Supervised Deep Adversarial Learning', IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 4(2), 2188--2195.
• Li, C.; Gu, X.; Xiao, X.; Lim, C. M. & Ren, H. (2019), 'A Robotic System with Multi-Channel Flexible Parallel Manipulators for Single Port Access Surgery', IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics 15(3), 1678--1687.
• Sanghani, P.; Ti, A. B.; King, N. K. K. & Ren, H. (2019), 'Evaluation of tumor shape features for overall survival prognosis in glioblastoma multiforme patients', Surgical Oncology.
• Sun, D.; Liao, Q.; Gu, X.; Li, C. & Ren, H. (2019), 'Multilateral Teleoperation With New Cooperative Structure Based on Reconfigurable Robots and Type-2 Fuzzy Logic', IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics 49(8), 2845--2859.
• Tan, N.; Gu, X. & Ren, H. (2019), 'Pose Characterization and Analysis of Soft Continuum Robots With Modeling Uncertainties Based on Interval Arithmetic', IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering 16(2), 570--584.
• Taylor, A. J.; Slutzky, T.; Feuerman, L.; Ren, H.; Tokuda, J.; Nilsson, K. & Tse, Z. T. H. (2019), 'MR Conditional SMA-Based Origami Joint', IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 24(2), 883--888.