Yifang Liu is a research and development associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is also a University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute Fellow, working with the Institute’s Advanced Manufacturing for Affordable Building Construction Convergent Research Initiative.

Liu specializes in robotics, optimization and control, with applications spanning automated building envelope installation, autonomous spray foam insulation, and robotic manipulation of irregular objects. Her current research aims to modernize labor-intensive building construction processes through automation, integrating real-time sensing, feedback control, and intelligent planning to improve precision and efficiency.

Prior to her current appointment, Liu was a postdoctoral research associate at ORNL and a visiting researcher at ETH Zurich’s Robotics Systems Lab. She also worked as a research intern at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories.

Education