2024 - 2027
Expected graduation
Expected graduation
Tsinghua University
Undergraduate, Department of Automation · Minor in Statistics
GPA 3.99 / 4.0Rank 2 / 170
Yifan Chen 陈奕帆
Department of Automation, Tsinghua University
I am an undergraduate researcher at Tsinghua University, with a minor in Statistics. My research focuses on robot learning, world models, and visual representations.
I study how robots can learn compositional skills efficiently, how we can evaluate policies reliably, and how discrete representations can make better use of their capacity.
Education
News
- RoboCoach and CI-MSE are under review.
- Helped organize the 3rd Tsinghua Embodied Intelligence Challenge and coordinated the gripper-track evaluation.
- Our Tsinghua Vulcan team won three RoboCup titles: the international Large division, China Open Large division, and Technical Challenge.
- Completed a research internship at Litchi Lab, working on failure-learning data and detection in ReAlign.
- Became Head of the Hardware Department, Automation Student Science Association.
- Started work on RoboCoach and compositional robot learning.
- Started work on critical-interval evaluation for robot policies.
- Received the National Scholarship for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Selected Research
Manuscripts & ongoing work
RoboCoach: World Models as Active Coaches for Compositional Robot Skills
Under review2026 · Co-first author, listed second
World models identify bottlenecks in compositional robot tasks and guide targeted policy improvement.
Project * Equal contribution
Critical Interval MSE: Toward Reliable Offline Validation for Robot Policy
Under review2026 · Third author
A task-critical offline validation metric for more reliable evaluation of robot manipulation policies.
Research Experience
Jul - Aug 2026
Litchi Lab 北京厘清智能
Research Intern
Contributed to ReAlign, focusing on a failure-learning dataset and failure-detection methods.
2026
Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI)
Research practice in single-arm and bimanual robot policy training and deployment.
Honors & Competitions
- National Scholarship for Undergraduate Students
- Tsinghua University Scholarship
- Tsinghua University Outstanding Student
- Champion · RoboCup International Humanoid Soccer League, Large Division
- Champion · China Robot Competition & RoboCup China Open, Humanoid Large Division
- Champion · RoboCup Humanoid Large Division Technical Challenge
- National First Prize · 27th China Robotics and Artificial Intelligence CompetitionHumanoid Robot Innovation Challenge, physical track.
- National Second Prize · 27th China Robotics and Artificial Intelligence CompetitionHumanoid Robot Innovation Challenge, simulation track.
- Special Prize · 4th Robot Dog Development CompetitionOne of Tsinghua's Top Ten Student Competitions; team leader.
- First Prize · THUAI8 Artificial Intelligence Challenge, Automation TrackTeam leader.
- First Prize · 2nd Tsinghua Embodied Intelligence Challenge
- First Prize · 9th Tsinghua Artificial Intelligence Challenge (THUAI-9)Electronic Engineering reinforcement-learning track.
- First Prize · 9th Tsinghua Artificial Intelligence Challenge (THUAI-9)Automation track.
- Third Prize (4th Place) & Outstanding Trainee · 9th Zhidong Program Tsinghua Intelligent Vehicle CompetitionOne of Tsinghua's Top Ten Student Competitions.
- Second Prize, Non-Physics Group A · 41st National College Physics Competition (Selected Regions)
- Excellent Team · Alibaba DAMO Academy LeYun Embodied Intelligence, Tsinghua University
- Excellent Team · URKL Humanoid Robot Fighting League, Global Top 32Team Real Steel.
- 1st Place, Group A · Ma John Cup Ten-Person Synchronized Rope Skipping
- 3rd Place · Capital Universities Ten-Person Synchronized Rope-Skipping Competition
- Three-Star Volunteer · Tsinghua Bauhinia Volunteer Program
- Third Prize in Summer Social Practice · Automation Department "Zhiqi Huxing" Teaching-Support TeamDeputy team leader.
Leadership & Service
Current roles
- Head, Hardware Department, Automation Student Science Association (since June 2026). Helped organize THUEI-3 and coordinated the gripper-track evaluation.
- Class Monitor, Class 46 (since June 2025). Class activities, communication, and student support.
- Technical Committee Member, General AI Personalized Education Program (since February 2025). Server management and class activities.
- Member, Tsinghua Youth League ideological and political practice group (since June 2025).
Previous roles
- Innovation Committee Member, Class 46 (September 2024 - June 2025).
- Officer, Student Rights Department, Automation Student Union (February - June 2025).
- Member, Hardware Department, Automation Student Science Association (June 2025 - June 2026).
- Deputy Leader, “Zhiqi Huxing” summer social-practice team; member of Tsinghua's “Keji” service team.
Represented Automation's 2024 cohort at the university Student Congress. Three-Star Volunteer in the Tsinghua Bauhinia Volunteer Program: 130 hours in total, including 72.5 hours in 2025-2026, across competition support, student orientation, academic Q&A, and community service.
Earlier Projects
Cyberdog Controller
Quadruped competition control · May - June 2025.
Image Recognition with Deep Learning
Excellent course project, Introduction to AI · March - April 2025.
Excel File Processing Program
Excellent course project, Introduction to AI · May - June 2025.
Beyond Research
I enjoy team activities: our ten-person synchronized rope-skipping team placed first in Group A at the Ma John Cup and third in the Capital Universities competition. I also participate in ice hockey, running, and class theater as a planner and performer, and share my experiences with incoming students.
Member of the Tsinghua Vulcan Team through Phase IV of the Zhuiguang Program.