PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Lirong Xiang

Lirong Xiang is an agricultural robotics researcher who applies artificial intelligence and computer vision to plant sensing and farm automation. She earned biosystems and agricultural engineering degrees, developed field-phenotyping systems, and helped create PhenoStereo for sorghum measurement. At NC State, she led the Automation and Robotics Lab and received the 2024 FFAR New Innovator Award for autonomous robotic weeding. As of October 2026, she is an assistant professor at Cornell, where she works on physical AI, digital twins and robotic greenhouse disease monitoring.

Works
64

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026. Citations and h-index are hidden because this OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mix in other authors.

Timeline

  1. 2017

    Biosystems engineering at Zhejiang

    She earns a B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2017 and begins doctoral study in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State in 2017. Her doctoral work develops robotic systems for indoor and field plant phenotyping.

  2. 2020

    PhenoStereo field imaging

    In 2020, Xiang and colleagues publish PhenoStereo, a portable stereo-imaging module for high-throughput field phenotyping. The system captures 14 stereoscopic frames per second and supports sorghum stem-diameter measurement.

  3. 2022–2025

    The NC State robotics lab

    In 2022, she completes her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State and starts her first faculty appointment in August in NC State’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. She leads the Automation and Robotics Lab as an assistant professor through 2025, with affiliations in electrical and computer engineering and the NC Plant Sciences Initiative.

  4. 2024

    An FFAR award for robotic weeding

    FFAR names her among the recipients of its 2024 New Innovator Award. In March 2025, she describes plans for an autonomous weeder whose AI models analyze sensor measurements and control the robot’s motors.

  5. 2025

    Cornell faculty and a 2025 award

    In September 2025, she is an assistant professor in Cornell’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. She receives the Faculty Early Career Award from the Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers in 2025.

  6. March 2026

    Physical AI and digital twins

    At Cornell’s Robotics Seminar in March 2026, she presents research on resilient autonomy that combines digital twins, physical AI, multi-agent reasoning and hardware–software co-design. Her case studies include robotic manipulation and disease detection.

  7. June 2026

    Greenhouse biosecurity project

    In June 2026, she joins a Cornell Atkinson project to develop an automated greenhouse biosecurity system with robotic leaf sampling and rapid molecular diagnostics for early disease detection.

  8. As of October 2026

    Assistant professor at Cornell

    As of October 2026, she is an assistant professor in Cornell’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering.

Career

  1. NowCornell UniversityAssistant Professor
  2. 2022–2025North Carolina State UniversityAssistant Professor
  3. North Carolina State UniversityLead, Automation and Robotics Lab

Education

  1. 2022Iowa State UniversityPhD in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
  2. 2017Zhejiang UniversityB.S. in Biosystems Engineering

From the biography.

Checked career sources: cals.cornell.edu, bae.ncsu.edu, cs.cornell.edu, cals.cornell.edu.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Lirong Xiang | CALS cals.cornell.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Back to the Future | Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering bae.ncsu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. PhenoStereo: a high-throughput stereo vision system for field-based plant phenotyping - with an application in sorghum stem diameter estimation elibrary.asabe.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. From Lab to Field: Bridging Physical AI, Digital Twins, and Domain-Aware Robotics for Real-World Deployment | Department of Computer Science | Cornell Bowers cs.cornell.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. FFAR Announces New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Awardees foundationfar.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Women in Ag: Lirong Xiang | Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering bae.ncsu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Meet our faculty: Lirong Xiang | CALS cals.cornell.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Cornell Atkinson awards drive progress in tech, ag, sustainability | Cornell Chronicle news.cornell.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.