CV

Education

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Lehigh University, 2021 - 2026
• M.S. in Computer Science, New York University, 2018 - 2020
• B.S. in Computer Science, China Agricultural University, 2014 - 2018

Work experience

• 2026/01 - Present: NEC Laboratories America | Princeton, NJ
  Research Intern
  • Mentor: Eric Cosatto
  • Propose a model for quantitative reasoning and multimodal reasoning
• 2025/05 - 2025/11: Johnson & Johnson | Cambridge, MA
  AI/ML Intern, Computer Vision
  • Mentor: Brandon Ginley
  • Propose a semi-supervised learning approach that leverages foundation models to improve annotation efficiency
• 2024/12 - 2025/06: 8th Workshop on Efficient Deep Learning for Computer Vision, CVPR | Nashville, TN
  Technical Program Committee
  • Mentor: Shuai Zhang
  • Organize the 2025 IEEE Low Power Computer Vision Challenge (LPCVC) open-vocabulary segmentation track (40+ teams involved); Collect data and evaluate the baseline model
• 2021/02 - Present: Lehigh University, WiNS Lab | Bethlehem, PA
  Research Assistant
  • Supervisor: Mooi Choo Chuah
  • Conduct research and propose cutting-edge algorithms; Design experiments and perform qualitative and quantitative evaluations

Skills

• Computer Vision Algorithms: Multimodal Perception, Multimodal Reasoning, Vision-Language Models, Multimodal Large Language Models, Image and Video Segmentation, Foundation Models, Multi-Sensor Fusion, Low-Light Vision
• Deep Learning Frameworks: PyTorch, Detectron2, TensorFlow, Linux, OpenCV, CUDA, MMCV
• Technologies & Tools: Bitbucket, Hugging Face, Docker, Visual Studio
• Languages: Python, C/C++, MATLAB, Git, Bash
• Soft skills: Written and Verbal Communication Skills, Teamwork, Academic Writing, Mathematical Skills, Creativity
• Hobbies: Basketball, Pickleball, Traveling

Publications

• [arXiv 2026] DiSa: Saliency-Aware Foreground-Background Disentangled Framework for Open-Vocabulary Semantic Segmentation
  Zhen Yao, Xin Li, Taotao Jing, Shuai Zhang, and Mooi Choo Chuah. arXiv, 2026.
• [ICASSP 2026] ChromouVQA: Benchmarking Vision-Language Models under Chromatic Camouflaged Images
  Yunfei Zhang, Yizhuo He, Yuanxun Shao, Zhengtao Yao, Haoyan Xu, Junhao Dong, Zhen Yao, Zhikang Dong. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2026.
• [arXiv 2025] Learning Flow-Guided Registration for RGB–Event Semantic Segmentation
  Zhen Yao, Xiaowen Ying, Zhiyu Zhu, and Mooi Choo Chuah. arXiv, 2025.
• [WACV 2025] Event-guided Low-light Video Semantic Segmentation
  Zhen Yao, and Mooi Choo Chuah. IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2025.
• [ICRA 2024] CrackNex: a Few-shot Low-light Crack Segmentation Model Based on Retinex Theory for UAV Inspections
  Zhen Yao, Jiawei Xu, Shuhang Hou, and Mooi Choo Chuah. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024.
• [IEEE-TITS 2023] Goal-lbp: Goal-based local behavior guided trajectory prediction for autonomous driving
  Zhen Yao, Xin Li, Bo Lang, and Mooi Choo Chuah. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (T-ITS), 2023.
• [WACV 2023] Robustness of trajectory prediction models under map-based attacks
  Zhihao Zheng, Xiaowen Ying, Zhen Yao, and Mooi Choo Chuah. IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2023.