Zhengbo Zou

Zhengbo Zou

Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Dept Civil Eng & Eng Mechanics

Zhengbo leads the Intelligent Construction Lab at Columbia ( ICON@Columbia ). ICON lab aims to understand how intelligent robots interact with human operators, co-workers, and the built environment by leveraging machine learning and control theory to design, build, and control these robots, and conduct human participant experiments to study their impacts on the end users.

Before joining Columbia, Zhengbo was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at UBC.

Additional Information

  • Research Experience
    • Graduate Research Assistant, New York University, 2017-2021
  • Professional Experience
    • Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, 2024-
    • Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, 2021-2024
  • Professional Affliliations
    • American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
    • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
    • Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Honors and Awards
    • Best Paper Award (with supervised Ph.D. students Lei Huang and Weijia Cai) at the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) Annual Conference, Canada, 2022
    • Outstanding Dissertation Award, New York University, 2021
    • Editor's Choice Award by Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, New York University, 2019
    • Inaugural class of Urban Doctoral Fellowship, New York University, 2018
  • Selected Publications
    1. Duan, K., Zou, Z. (2024). “Morphology Agnostic Gesture Mapping for Intuitive Teleoperation of Construction Robots”. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 62, 102600.
    2. Huang, L., Cai, W., Zhu, Z., Zou, Z. (2023). “Dexterous manipulation of construction tools using anthropomorphic robotic hand”. Automation in Construction, 156, 105133.
    3. Li, R., Zou, Z. (2023). “Enhancing Construction Robot Learning for Collaborative and Long-Horizon Tasks using Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning”. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 581 102140.
    4. Duan, K., Suen, C., Zou, Z. (2023). “Robot morphology evolution for automated HVAC system inspections using graph heuristic search and reinforcement learning”. Automation in Construction, 153, 104956.
    5. Cai, W., Huang, L., Zou, Z. (2023). “Actively-exploring thermography-enabled autonomous robotic system for detecting and registering HVAC thermal leaks”. Automation in Construction, 152, 104901.
    6. Zhang, H. X., Zou, Z. (2023). “Quality assurance for building components through point cloud segmentation leveraging synthetic data”. Automation in Construction, 155, 105045.
    7. Yu, X., Zou, Z., Ergan, S. (2023). “Extracting principal building variables from automatically collected façade images for energy conservation through deep transfer learning”. Applied Energy, 344, 121228.
    8. Huang, L., Zhu, Z., Zou, Z. (2023). “To imitate or not to imitate: An integrated approach to boost reinforcement learning-based construction robotic control for long-horizon tasks using virtual demonstrations”. Automation in Construction, 146, 104691.
    9. Zou, Z., Ergan, S. (2023). “Towards Emotionally Intelligent Buildings: A Convolutional Neural Network based Approach to Classify Human Emotional Experience in Virtual Built Environments.” Advanced Engineering Informatics, 55, 101868.
    10. Ergan, S., Zou, Z., Bernardes, S. D., Zuo, F., Ozbay, K. (2022). “Developing an integrated platform to enable hardware-in-the-loop for synchronous VR, traffic simulation and sensor interactions.” Advanced Engineering Informatics, 51, 101476.
    11. Zou, Z., Ergan, S. (2021). “Evaluating the effectiveness of biometric sensors and their signal features for classifying human experience in virtual environments.” Advanced Engineering Informatics, 49, 101358.
    12. Zou, Z., Ergan, S., Fisher-Gewirtzman, D., Curtis, C. (2021). “Quantifying the Impact of Urban Form on Human Experience: An Experiment using Virtual Environments and Electroencephalogram.” ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 35(3), 04021004.
    13. Zou, Z., Yu, X., Ergan, S. (2020). “Towards Optimal Control of Air Handling Units using Deep Reinforcement Learning and Recurrent Neural Network.” Building and Environment, 168, 106535.
    14. Ergan, S., Radwan, A., Zou, Z., Tseng, H. A., Han, X. (2019). “Quantifying Human Experience in Architectural Spaces with Integrated Virtual Reality and Body Sensor Networks.” ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 33(2), 04018062.
    15. Du, J., Zou, Z.., Shi, Y., Zhao, D. (2018). “Zero Latency: Real-time Synchronization of BIM Data in Virtual Reality for Collaborative Decision-making.” Automation in Construction, 85, 51-64.
    16. Du, J., Shi, Y., Zou, Z., Zhao, D. (2018). “CoVR: Cloud-based Multiuser Virtual Reality Headset System for Project Communication of Remote Users.” ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 144(2), 04017109.
  • Education
    • PhD, Civil and Urban Engineering, New York University
    • MS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
    • BS, Civil Engineering, Tongji University