PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Qi Dou

Also known as Dou Qi, 窦琪

Qi Dou is a computer scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong whose AI research for medicine runs from 3D deep learning for medical image segmentation to autonomous surgical robots. She earned a bachelor's degree at Beihang University in 2014 and a Ph.D. at CUHK in 2018, and her 2017 paper on the 3D deeply supervised network won the Medical Image Analysis best paper award at MICCAI. After a postdoctoral position at Imperial College London, she and her team open-sourced the SurRoL surgical simulator in 2021, and she received the IEEE EMBS Early Career Achievement Award in 2023. In 2025, her group published a Science Robotics study of vision-based surgical robot automation tested on live animals. She is an Associate Professor of computer science and engineering at CUHK and General Co-Chair of MICCAI 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2014–2018

    Beihang degree and a CUHK PhD

    She earns a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering at Beihang University in 2014 and a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in July 2018. After the doctorate, she spends three months as a postdoctoral research fellow in the same lab.

  2. 2017

    The 3D deeply supervised network

    With Pheng-Ann Heng and colleagues, she publishes "3D deeply supervised network for automated segmentation of volumetric medical images" in Medical Image Analysis in 2017. The 3D fully convolutional network, tested on liver segmentation from CT scans and heart segmentation from MR images, wins the journal's best paper award at MICCAI 2017.

  3. 2018–2019

    Young Scientist Award, Imperial postdoc

    She wins the HKIS-TOWNGAS Young Scientist Award in Engineering Science in 2018 for her research on artificial intelligence for medical image computing. In February 2019, she is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London.

  4. 2021

    SurRoL and an ICRA award

    In 2021, her research team open-sources SurRoL, an embodied AI simulator for surgical robots built through a collaboration between CUHK and Johns Hopkins University. A paper on which she is last author wins the IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics in 2021.

  5. 2022–2024

    MICCAI program co-chair roles

    She serves as Program Co-Chair of MIDL 2022, MICCAI 2022, IPCAI 2023 and MICCAI 2024. CUHK gives her its Young Researcher Award in 2024.

  6. 2023

    An IEEE EMBS early-career award

    In 2023, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society gives her its Early Career Achievement Award for deep-learning work in biomedical image analysis and robotic surgery intelligence. She is then an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK.

  7. 2025

    Surgical embodied intelligence

    In 2025, a CUHK team she leads reports a vision-based surgical robot framework in Science Robotics that combines visual foundation models, reinforcement learning and visual servoing, and it performs tissue retraction, gauze picking and blood vessel clipping in live-animal tests. Her team completes the world's first autonomous surgery in a clinical setting in August 2025, using a laparoscopic robot from Cornerstone Robotics. The He Xiangjian Science Foundation Young Scientist Program funds her project "Embodied Intelligence in Surgical Robots" with CNY 2 million in 2025.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate Professor at CUHK

    She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK and an affiliated member of the CUHK T-Stone Robotics Institute. Her recent focus covers surgical robotics, embodied AI and humanoid robots for elderly care, agentic AI systems for smart hospitals, and LLMs and smart XR for medical education. She is General Co-Chair of MICCAI 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2018Chinese University of Hong KongPostdoctoral Research Fellow, Assistant Professor
  2. From 2019Imperial College LondonPostdoctoral Research Associate

Education

  1. 2018Chinese University of Hong KongPh.D. in computer science and engineering
  2. 2014Beihang UniversityBachelor's degree in biomedical engineering

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Qi Dou. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. Universities keep AI researchers for a median of 6 years, compared with 2 years at frontier labsIncludes Chinese University of Hong Kong. Across 15,811 dated work stays (6,529 people), median role tenure runs from 6 years at universities to 2 years at frontier labs. We compare all five organization types, starting decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, and the organizations that keep people longest.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Chinese University of Hong Kong. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Chinese University of Hong Kong. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Qi Dou yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Qi Dou – CUHK CSE cse.cuhk.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Towards AI-Powered Healthcare: Automated Medical Image Analysis via Deep Learning | HKUST CSE cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Prof. Heng Pheng Ann and His Team Won the Best Paper Award of Medical Image Analysis in the 20th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention 2017 (MedIA-MICCAI’17) – CUHK CSE cse.cuhk.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. 3D deeply supervised network for automated segmentation of volumetric medical images - PolyU Scholars Hub research.polyu.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Dr. Qi DOU won the HKIS-TOWNGAS Young Scientist Award 2018 and CUHK Postgraduate Research Output Award 2017 – CUHK CSE cse.cuhk.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Home | Qi Dou cse.cuhk.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. CUHK’s newly-created embodied intelligence platform successfully completes the world’s first multi-task surgical automation tests on a live animal med.cuhk.edu.hk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. 学术报告 | Image-based Robotic Surgery Intelligence bme.sjtu.edu.cn. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. IEEE EMBS newsletter, June 2023 engage.ieee.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Image-based Robotic Surgery Intelligence: Qi Dou | heidelberg.ai heidelberg.ai. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. AI Progress to Make Surgical Robots a Bigger Presence in Hospitals, CUHK Professor Says yicaiglobal.com. Checked 22 October 2026.