Faculty Directory

Education

Ph.D.     Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (2022)

M.S.      Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (2017)

B.S. Mechatronics, Tongji University, China (2015)

Work Experience

2024 – Present    Assistant Professor, UM-SJTU Joint Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

2022 – 2023 Postdoc, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

2017 – 2019 CTO and Co-Founder, BITO Robotics

Honors and Awards

• IEEE MRS Best Paper Finalist (2023)
• M.S. Best Poster Graduate Research Symposium, Mechanical Engineering, CMU  (2017)
• The Third Shanghai Undergraduate Mechanical Innovation Competition, First Prize (2014)

Selected Publications (10 selected in last 3 years)

• Z. Ren, A. K. Srinivasan, I. Abraham and H. Choset, “A Pareto-Optimal Local Optimization Framework for Multi-Objective Ergodic Search,” IEEE Transaction on Robotics, 2023.
• Z Ren, Z. Rubinstein, S. Smith, S. Rathinam, H. Choset, “ERCA*: A New Approach for the Resource Constrained Shortest Path Problem,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2023
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “CBSS: A New Approach for Multi-Agent Combinatorial Path Finding,” IEEE Transaction on Robotics, 2023.
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “A Conflict-Based Search Framework for Multi-Objective Multi-Agent Path Finding,” IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2022.
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam, M. Likhachev and H. Choset, “Multi-Objective Path-Based D* Lite,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022.
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “Subdimensional Expansion for Multi-Objective Multi-Agent Path Finding,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2021.
• Z. Ren, J. Li, H. Zhang, S. Koenig, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “Binary Branching Multi-Objective Conflict-Based Search for Multi-Agent Path Finding,” International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2023.
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “Conflict-Based Steiner Search for Multi-Agent Combinatorial Path Finding,” Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2022.
• Z. Ren, A. K. Srinivasan, H. Coffin, I. Abraham and H. Choset, “A Local Optimization Framework for Multi-Objective Ergodic Search,” Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2022.
• Z. Ren, S. Rathinam and H. Choset, “MS*: A New Exact Algorithm for Multi-agent Simultaneous Multi-goal Sequencing and Path Finding,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021.

Professional Service

• Associate Editor for IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024
• Co-Chair for the Doctoral Symposium at the 17th International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS), 2024
• Organizing Committee Member for AAAI 2023 Workshop on Multi-Agent Path Finding (WoMAPF)