Yiqi Zhao

☕️

Yiqi Zhao

赵一淇

PhD Candidate, Computer Science

About Me

Yiqi (Nick) Zhao is a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC). He is advised by Professor Jyo Deshmukh and Professor Yue Wang. He is honored to be a member of the CPS-VIDA lab and the PSI Lab at USC. He also works closely with Professor Lars Lindemann. His research focuses on multirobot design and verification.

"One day, I just wanted to keep swimming, until the sea turned blue." — Yu Hua

「有一天我就想一直游，我想一直游到海水变蓝」——余华

Download CV

Interests

Robotics
Cyber-Physical Systems
Formal Methods
Systems and Control Theory

Education

PhD, Computer Science
University of Southern California
MS, Computer Science
University of Southern California
BSc, magna cum laude, Honors in Computer Science
Vanderbilt University

Featured Publications Full List →

Z-sight: Unifying Vision-Language-Action and Latent World Modeling

Junjie Ye^*, Yiqi Zhao^*, Muchen Xu^*, Celina Shiyu Wang, Hao Dong, Ruohai Ge, Rong Xue, Benjamin J. Kolligs, Aditya Dutt, Nassim A. Samad, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Yue Wang^†, Yuliang Guo^†

Oct 1, 2026

Rolling-WAM: World Action Models with Rolling Imagination

Yinghua Zhou^*, Junjie Ye^*, Yiqi Zhao, Hao Dong, Celina Shiyu Wang, Ruohai Ge, Tingyi Yang, Basile Van Hoorick, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Vitor Campagnolo Guizilini^†, Yue Wang^†

Sep 24, 2026

PDF Cite Code Project

Safety-aware Model Predictive Path Integral Control with Signal Temporal Logic

Yiqi Zhao, Taekyung Kim, Hideki Okamoto, Bardh Hoxha, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Lars Lindemann, Georgios Fainekos

Aug 24, 2026

PDF Cite

Logic-VLA: A Temporal Logic Conditioned Vision-Language-Action Model

Celina Shiyu Wang, Yiqi Zhao^†, Junjie Ye, Yue Wang, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh^†

IROS 2026 ReS AI Workshop (Oral)

Aug 20, 2026

PDF Cite Project

DUET: Dual-Robot Understanding via Efficient Teaching

Yiqi Zhao^*, Ruohai Ge^*, Celina Shiyu Wang, Junjie Ye, Muchen Xu, Minhao Li, Sergey Zakharov, Basile Van Hoorick, Vitor Campagnolo Guizilini, Leonidas Guibas, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Yue Wang

🏆 Best Paper Finalist, IROS 2026 PhysCollaBot Workshop

🏆 Best Contribution, IROS 2026 RWCMRC Workshop

Jun 14, 2026

PDF Cite Video Project

STL-GO: Spatio-Temporal Logic with Graph Operators for Distributed Systems with Multiple Network Topologies

Yiqi Zhao^*, Xinyi Yu^*, Bardh Hoxha, Georgios Fainekos, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Lars Lindemann

ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems

ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT)

Jul 20, 2025

PDF Cite

Distributionally Robust Predictive Runtime Verification under Spatio-Temporal Logic Specifications

Yiqi Zhao, Emily Zhu, Bardh Hoxha, Georgios Fainekos, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Lars Lindemann

ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems

Apr 3, 2025

PDF Cite Code Poster Video

Robust Conformal Prediction for STL Runtime Verification under Distribution Shift

Yiqi Zhao, Bardh Hoxha, Georgios Fainekos, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Lars Lindemann

🏆 Best Paper Finalist, ICCPS 2024

The 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS)

Nov 16, 2023

PDF Cite Code

Fairguard: Harness Logic-based Fairness Rules in Smart Cities

Yiqi Zhao, Ziyan An, Xuqing Gao, Ayan Mukhopadhyay, Meiyi Ma

The 8th ACM/IEEE Conference on Internet of Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI)

Feb 22, 2023

PDF Cite

Experience

Research and Development Intern
Toyota Research Institute of North America May 2025 – August 2025
Worked on cyber-physical systems research at the Future Research Department; Conducted research on Model Predictive Path Integral (paper). Supervisors: Georgios Fainekos, Bardh Hoxha.
Application Development Intern
ADP June 2022 – August 2022
Full stack API development for the Autopay Group within the Global Product & Tech group. Supervisor: Jim Farber.