Professor Shane (Sheng Q) Xie

The University of Leeds

Talk: Robotics and AI for Effective Stroke Rehabilitation Treatment: Challenges and Opportunities

Prof Shane (Sheng Q) Xie, Ph.D., FRSNZ, FEngNZ, FIEEE, FASME, FIMechE and FAAIA, is the Chair of Robotics and Autonomous Systems and Director of the Rehabilitation Robotics Lab at the University of Leeds, and he was the Director of the Rehabilitation and Medical Robotics Centre at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (NZ, 2002-2016). He has >30 years of research experience in healthcare robotics and exoskeletons. He has published > 500 refereed papers and 8 books in rehabilitation exoskeleton design and control, neuromuscular modelling, and advanced human-robot interaction. He has supervised >15 postdocs, 100 PhDs and 80 MEs in his team with funding of >£30M from five countries since 2003. His team has invented three award-winning rehabilitation exoskeletons. He is an expert in control of exoskeletons, i.e. impedance control, adaptive control, sliding mode control, and iterative learning control strategies. He has received many distinguished awards including the David Bensted Fellowship Award, and the AMP Invention Award. He is an elected Fellow of Royal Society of New Zealand, Fellow of Engineering New Zealand, Fellow of IEEE, ASME, IMechE and AAIA. He was the Technical Editor for IEEE/ASME Transaction on Mechatronics, Associate Editor for Mechatronics Elservier and Editorial member of many top journals in Mechatronics and Robotics.

Professor Mengjie Zhang

Victoria University of Wellington

Talk: Evolutionary Machine Learning: Research, Applications and Challenges

Mengjie Zhang is a Fellow of Royal Society of New Zealand , a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand, a Fellow of IEEE, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Professor of Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) at Victoria University of Wellington, where he heads the interdisciplinary Evolutionary Computation and Machine Learning Research Group. He is also the Director of the Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University. His research is mainly focused on AI, machine learning and big data. He received the “Evo* Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe 2023”, the “2024 Australasian Artificial Intelligence Distinguished Research Contribution Award”, and the ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award in 2025. He is also a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher. Since 2007, he has been listed as a top five (currently #2) world genetic programming researchers by the GP bibliography. 
Prof Zhang is the Chair for IEEE CIS Awards Committee. He is also a past Chair of the IEEE CIS Intelligent Systems Applications Technical Committee, the Emergent Technologies Technical Committee and the Evolutionary Computation Technical Committee, a past Chair for IEEE CIS PubsCom Strategic Planning subcommittee, and the founding chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter in New Zealand.

Professor Dan Zhao

The University of Canterbury

Title: PINNs-derived Van der Pol Oscillators Simulating and Predicting Bifurcation and Amplitude Death Characteristics of Combustion Instabilities

Prof. Dan Zhao is the Director of Master Engineering at University of Canterbury, and Strategic Evaluation Panel member of Royal Society of New Zealand. He serves on a number of scientific journals as the Chief and Associate Editor like Progress in Aerospace Sciences. Professor Zhao has been awarded with 12 fellowships from Royal Society Te Apārangi, Engineering New Zealand, US National Academy of Artificial Intelligence, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, European Academy of Sciences, Royal Aeronautical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry as well as Distinguished Fellow of International Institute of Acoustics & Vibration. His research expertise/interests include turbomachineries, aeroacoustics, UAV aerodynamics; propulsion; ammonia/hydrogen combustion science/technology. By now, Prof. Zhao has secured funding over $18.5 million.

Professor Xun Xu

University of Auckland

Title: Human-Centric Manufacturing: Re-thinking, Re-justifying, and Re-envisioning

Professor Xun Xu is a leading expert in Smart Manufacturing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, with over 40 years of experience in the field. His research spans intelligent and interoperable machining systems, cloud-based manufacturing, and smart factories, earning him international recognition.
Dr. Xu has published over 460 research papers and received almost 40,000 citations with an h-index of 89 in Google Scholar. He leads the Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems (LISMS), New Zealand’s only research lab dedicated to Industry 4.0. His current research focuses on smart factories, digital twins, and cloud manufacturing.
A Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Engineering New Zealand (EngNZ), Dr. Xu was recognized as a Clarivate™ Highly Cited Researcher (2020) and named among the “20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing” by SME. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME (NAMRI | SME) and chairs the NAMRI | SME Scientific Committee.