Yanxi Liu

Timeline

1. 1990

   A UMass doctorate in symmetry

   After a bachelor's degree at Beijing Normal University, she earns a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1990. Her dissertation, Symmetry Groups in Robotic Assembly Planning, is supervised by Robin Popplestone.

2. 1993–1996

   Joining CMU's Robotics Institute

   After postdoctoral research at LIFIA/IMAG in Grenoble, France, and a year at DIMACS on an NSF research-education fellowship, she becomes a research assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1993. In 1996, she moves to the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University as a research scientist, and her ten-year stay there ends with a move to Penn State.

3. 2000–2005

   Coining computational symmetry

   In 2000, she coins the term "Computational Symmetry" in a book chapter on symmetry. In 2004, she coauthors a paper on periodic pattern perception based on frieze and wallpaper groups with Robert T. Collins and Yanghai Tsin, and in 2005 she coauthors "Online selection of discriminative tracking features" with Collins and Marius Leordeanu in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

4. 2010–2013

   Symmetry survey and NSF grant

   In 2010, she is lead author, with Hagit Hel-Or, Craig S. Kaplan and Luc Van Gool, of the 195-page survey "Computational Symmetry in Computer Vision and Computer Graphics" in Foundations and Trends in Computer Graphics and Vision. She leads two competitions on symmetry detection from real-world images, at CVPR 2011 and CVPR 2013, and in 2012 she receives an NSF INSPIRE award on symmetry group-based regularity perception in human and computer vision.

5. 2013–2019

   Visiting posts and CVPR chair

   In 2013, she begins an 18-month leave visiting Stanford, Google and Microsoft. In 2016, she gives a keynote at DICTA 2016 and begins a visiting professorship at the Department of Computer Science of ETH Zurich. She serves as program chair of CVPR 2017 and of WACV 2019.

6. 2019–2020

   From regularity to human dynamics

   In 2019, she becomes principal investigator of the NSF project "Explicit and Implicit Regularity Perception", which runs to 2025. In 2020, she coauthors "From Image to Stability: Learning Dynamics from Human Pose" at ECCV 2020 with Jesse Scott, Bharadwaj Ravichandran, Christopher Funk and Robert T. Collins.

7. 2023–2024

   NSF award and a CMU sabbatical

   In 2023, she coauthors "Image-based Stability Quantification" in IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering with Jesse Scott, John Challis and Robert T. Collins, and receives the NSF award "From Vision to Dynamics". She spends a sabbatical from summer 2023 to summer 2024 at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

8. As of October 2026

   Professor at Penn State

   She is a professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering at Penn State, where she directs the Motion Capture Lab for Smart Health and co-directs the Laboratory for Perception, Action and Cognition. In 2025, she gives a keynote at the International Conference on SYMMETRY 2025 in Hangzhou, China, and in May 2025 she gives a talk at ShanghaiTech on learning dynamics from kinematics in human movement.