Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Email: yu000487@umn.edu [CV] [Google Scholar] [LinkedIn] [Github]

About me

I am a 5-th year Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Engineering from University of Minnesota (UMN), advised by Prof. Changhyun Choi. Before joining UMN, I received my Master's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Machine Learning and Data Science Track) from University of California San Diego (UCSD), USA, and a Bachelor's Degree from North China Electric Power University, China.

I will be graduating in 2025 and I am open for machine learning and robotics related job opportunities! Please drop me messages if you find me a fit candidate!

Research Interests: Robot Manipulation, Machine Learning

Robot Manipulation Publications

• A Parameter-Efficient Tuning Framework for Language-guided Object Grounding and Robot Grasping
  Houjian Yu, Mingen Li, Alireza Rezazadeh, Yang Yang, Changhyun Choi
  IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025.
  [PDF] [project page] [Code] (To Appear)

• Routing Manipulation of Deformable Linear Object Using Reinforcement Learning and Diffusion Policy
  Mingen Li, Houjian Yu, Changhyun Choi,
  IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025.
  [PDF] [project page] (To Appear)

• InvSlotGNN: Unsupervised Discovery of Viewpoint Invariant Multi-Object Representations and Visual Dynamics
  Alireza Rezazadeh, Houjian Yu, Karthik Desingh*, Changhyun Choi*
  IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025.
  [PDF] [project page] (To Appear)

• Attribute-Based Robotic Grasping with Data-Efficient Adaptation
  Yang Yang*, Houjian Yu* (joint first authors), Xibai Lou, Yuanhao Liu, Changhyun Choi
  IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2024.
  [PDF] [project page]

• IOSG: Image-driven Object Searching and Grasping
  Houjian Yu, Xibai Lou, Yang Yang, Changhyun Choi
  IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots (IROS), 2023.
  [PDF] [project page]

• Adversarial Object Rearrangement in Constrained Environments with Heterogeneous Graph Neural Networks
  Xibai Lou, Houjian Yu, Ross Worobel, Yang Yang, Changhyun Choi
  IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots (IROS), 2023.
  [PDF][project page]

• Self-Supervised Interactive Object Segmentation Through a Singulation-and-Grasping Approach
  Houjian Yu, Changhyun Choi
  European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2022.
  [PDF] [project page] [Poster]

Publications on Wireless Communications during Undergrad

• Dependable Content Distribution in D2D-Based Cooperative Vehicular Networks: A Big Data-Integrated Coalition Game Approach
  Zhenyu Zhou, Houjian Yu, Chen Xu, Yan Zhang, Shahid Mumtaz and Jonathan Rodriguez
  IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (T-ITS), 2018.
  [PDF]

• BEGIN: Big Data Enabled Energy-Efficient Vehicular Edge Computing
  Zhenyu Zhou, Houjian Yu, Chen Xu, Zheng Chang, Shahid Mumtaz and Jonathan Rodriguez
  IEEE Communications Magazine, 2018.
  [PDF]

Professional Experience

• Applied Scientist Intern, Amazon Lab126, Sunnyvale CA | (May - August) 2024
  

• Research Assistant, UMN | Fall 2020 - Present
  

• Teaching Assistant, EE1301 Intro to Computing Systems (C++) | Fall 2021 | Spring 2022 | Spring 2023
  

• Teaching Assistant, EE2361 Intro to Microcontrollers | Spring 2024