Dr. Feifei Qian

Biography

Feifei Qian is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California. Qian received a PhD in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Physics from Georgia Institute of Technology. Before her appointment at USC, she worked in the GRASP lab at the University of Pennsylvania as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Qian’s expertise includes analyzing and modeling complex interactions among robots, their locomotion, and environments, generating innovative control and sensing strategies to improve robot mobility in challenging terrains. In her recent research, Qian has focused on the locomotion of legged robots and animals, uncovering principles and strategies to produce effective movement in granular terrains and perturbation-rich environments. By applying these principles, she is developing robots that can exploit obstacles and disturbances to navigate cluttered environments, including utilizing leg soil strength sensors to generate erodibility maps for walking in deserts. Qian’s research has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award and a student paper award from the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference, and her work has been featured in various media outlets including BBC News, CBS News, Reuters, NPR Weekend Edition, IEEE Spectrum, and Wired. She serves on the organizing committee for the 2025 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference and holds various roles including Associate Editor for the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and Program Committee member for the 25th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR).

Research Interests