PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Xue Bin Peng

Also known as Jason Peng

Xue Bin Peng is a computer scientist whose research uses reinforcement learning and motion imitation to develop motor skills for simulated characters and robots. He earned computer science degrees at UBC, coauthored DeepLoco and DeepMimic, and coauthored a system that teaches legged robots to learn agile motion from animal examples. His 2021 UC Berkeley dissertation on motion imitation and reinforcement learning won the SIGGRAPH Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2022. In 2025, he coauthored TWIST for humanoid teleoperation; in March 2026, he coauthored Kimodo for controllable human motion generation. As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Simon Fraser University and a research scientist at NVIDIA; he plans to move to UBC in 2027.

Works
43
Citations
4,293
h-index
24
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2015–2017

    Computer science at UBC

    He earns a BSc in computer science at UBC in 2015 and an MSc in computer science there in 2017.

  2. 2017

    DeepLoco and an SCA award

    In 2017, he coauthors DeepLoco, a hierarchical deep reinforcement learning framework that trains a simulated biped to follow trails, dribble a soccer ball and navigate around obstacles. In August 2017, he and Michiel van de Panne win the SCA Best Student Paper Award for Learning Locomotion Skills Using DeepRL: Does the Choice of Action Space Matter?

  3. 2018

    DeepMimic character control

    In 2018, he coauthors DeepMimic, which uses reinforcement learning to train simulated characters to imitate motion clips and perform locomotion, acrobatics and martial arts.

  4. 2020

    Animal imitation for robots

    In 2020, he coauthors an imitation-learning system that trains legged robots to learn agile locomotion from real animal motions. The paper appears among the RSS Foundation’s 2020 Outstanding Paper nominees.

  5. 2021

    A Berkeley PhD

    He completes a PhD in computer science at UC Berkeley in 2021 with a dissertation titled Acquiring Motor Skills Through Motion Imitation and Reinforcement Learning, advised by Pieter Abbeel and Sergey Levine.

  6. 2022

    A SIGGRAPH dissertation award

    In 2022, he receives the SIGGRAPH Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award for his work on character animation with deep reinforcement learning.

  7. 2025–March 2026

    TWIST and Kimodo

    In 2025, he coauthors TWIST, which teleoperates humanoid robots through whole-body motion imitation with a controller that combines reinforcement learning and behavior cloning. In March 2026, he coauthors Kimodo, a project on scaling controllable human motion generation.

  8. As of October 2026

    Research at SFU and NVIDIA

    As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair in Simon Fraser University’s School of Computing Science, and a research scientist at NVIDIA. His work combines deep reinforcement learning, motion imitation and physics-based simulation to develop motor skills for simulated characters and real-world robots. He plans to move to the University of British Columbia in 2027.

Career

  1. Since 2022Simon Fraser UniversityAssistant professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair
  2. Since 2022NVIDIAResearch scientist

Education

  1. 2021University of California, BerkeleyPhD in computer science
  2. 2017University of British ColumbiaMSc in computer science
  3. 2015University of British ColumbiaBSc in computer science

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Xue Bin Peng. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Xue Bin Peng. 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.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes NVIDIA. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes NVIDIA. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

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 Xue Bin Peng yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Jason Peng - School of Computing Science - Simon Fraser University sfu.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. DeepLoco: Dynamic Locomotion Skills Using Hierarchical Deep Reinforcement Learning xbpeng.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. The Imager Laboratory for Graphics, Visualization, and HCT cs.ubc.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. DeepMimic: Example-Guided Deep Reinforcement Learning of Physics-Based Character Skills xbpeng.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Learning Agile Robotic Locomotion Skills by Imitating Animals · Robotics: Science and Systems roboticsconference.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Outstanding Paper Award - RSS Foundation roboticsfoundation.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Ph.D. Dissertations | EECS at UC Berkeley www2.eecs.berkeley.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Xue Bin (Jason) Peng | DAIR @ NVIDIA Research research.nvidia.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. TWIST: Teleoperated Whole-Body Imitation System xbpeng.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Kimodo: Scaling Controllable Human Motion Generation | DAIR @ NVIDIA Research research.nvidia.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. Xue Bin (Jason) Peng xbpeng.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.