Viterbi Faculty Directory

Biography

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Feifei Qian is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Southern California. Qian received her PhD in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Physics from Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to her appointment at USC, she worked in the GRASP lab at University of Pennsylvania as a postdoctoral fellow.

Dr. Qian’s expertise is in analyzing and modeling the complex interactions between robots and their locomotion environments and generating innovative control and sensing strategies to improve robot mobility on challenging terrains. In recent research, Qian studied the locomotion of legged robots and animals, and has uncovered principles and strategies to produce effective movement on granular terrains and in perturbation-rich environments. Using these principles, she is developing robots that can exploit obstacle disturbances to navigate cluttered environment, and robots that can use their leg as soil strength sensors to generate erodibility map by walking around the desert.

Qian’s research has been recognized with NSF CAREER award, best student paper award from the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference, and has been featured in many media press including BBC News, CBS News, Reuters, NPR Weekend Edition, IEEE Spectrum, Wired, and R&D Magazine. She serves as the Organizing Committee for the 2025 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference, Associated Editor for the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Program Committee for the 25th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), the 2021 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) Inclusion Program, and the 2019 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) Pioneer Program.