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Yang Tao

Fischell Family Distinguished Professor
Fischell Fellow
Fischell Department of Bioengineering
Maryland Robotics Center
Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices
4120 A. James Clark Hall
ytao@umd.edu
301-405-1189
Bio-Imaging and Machine Vision Lab

EDUCATION

 

Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1991

 

BACKGROUND

 

Professor Tao's research has been focused on advanced bioimaging, machine vision, and AI-driven robotics technologies for applications in bioengineering, food engineering, biomedical and biopharmaceutical fields, as well as smart manufacturing.  See current projects in: https://taolab.umd.edu/

Earlier, Professor Tao's research projects include the development of a new system for de-capping up to 120 strawberries per second while increasing worker and product safety, and a hyperspectral imaging system used to help separate the meat of the North American black walnut—a more difficult nut to crack than the familiar English walnut—from its shell.

 

HONORS AND AWARDS

 

  • Fischell Family Distinguished Professor, 2025
  • Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2024
  • Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Program Faculty Mentor Award, 2021.
  • Fellow, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2013.
  • 2006 Excellence in Research Award from the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2006.
  • USDA Secretary Ann Veneman’s Award for Excellence for increasing the efficiency, security, sustainability and profitability of the fruit and vegetable industry through applications of the technologies developed, 2003.
  • USDA CSREES (Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Services)’ Award (for the same efforts above), 2003.
  • Outstanding Services Award, Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological and Food Engineers, 2003.
  • 2002 Award for Excellence by Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors for outstanding contributions to the Northeastern Multistate Research.
  • ASAE 2000 Superior Paper Award, Trans. of ASAE. (Given to top 2.5% of annually published articles.)
  • ASAE 1999 Superior Paper Award, Trans. of ASAE. (Given to top 2.5% of annually published articles.)
  • ASAE 1994 Engineering Achievement of the Year - Sunkist Engineering Young Designer Award.
  • ASAE 1993 AE50 award for outstanding innovation of technology in food and agriculture.
  • Outstanding Teacher Award, 1999-2000, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas.
  • Outstanding Researcher Award, 1998-1999, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas.

 

Bioengineering, bioimaging, machine vision, food engineering, food safety and quality, biomaterial inspection, sensors and bioinstrumentation, robotics, automation, biopharmaceutical non-invasive monitoring and analytics, and smart manufacturing technologies.

  • BIOE 420 Bioimaging

  • BIOE 457 Biomedical Electronics & Instrumentation

  • BIOE 485: Capstone Design I: Entrepreneurship, Regulatory Issues, and Ethics

  • BIOE 486: Capstone Design II

For a complete list of publications, please visit: https://taolab.umd.edu/publications/, and the prior old website: 

  • Jiang, L., B. Zhu, X. Rao, G. Berney, and Y. Tao. 2007. Discrimination of Black Walnut Shell and Pulp in Hyperspectra1 Fluorescence Imagery using Gaussian Kernel Function Approach. J. of Food Engineering, 81(1):108-117.
  • Zhu, B., L Jiang, and Y. Tao. 2007. 3D Shape Enhanced Transform for Automatic Apple Stem-End/Calyx Identification. Optical Engineering, 46(1):017201.
  • Jiang, L., B. Zhu, H. Jing, X. Chen, X. Rao, and Y. Tao. 2007. Gaussian Mixture Model Based Walnut Shell and Meat Classification in Hyperspectral Fluorescence Imagery. Trans. of ASABE, 50(1):153-160.
  • Vogel, A., M. Hassan, F. Amyot, V. Chernmordik, B. Dasgeb, S. Demos, R. Pursley, R. Little, R. Yarchoan, Y. Tao, and A.H. Gandjbakhche. 2007. Using Non-Invasive Multi-Spectral Imaging to Quantitatively Assess Tissue Vasculature. Journal of Biomedical Optics.
  • Zhu, B., L. Jiang, Y. Luo, and Y. Tao. 2007. Gabor Feature-Based Apple Quality Inspection Using Kernel Principal Component Analysis. J. of Food Engineering, 81(4):741-749.
  • Kim, J., Tao, Y. and Luo, Y. 2006. Effect of the combination treatment of 1-methylcyclopropene and acidified sodium chlorite on microbial growth and quality of fresh-cut cilantro. Postharvest Biol. Technol.
  • Jin, F., H. Jing, L. Qin, X. Chen, and Y. Tao. 2006. Geometrical calibration of a combined 3D laser and X-ray imaging system. SPIE. Vol. 638 (2006):11-21.
  • Cheng, X., Y. Tao, YR Chen, and X. Chen. 2006. Integrated PCA-FLD Method for Hyperspectral Imagery Feature Extraction and Band Selection. IEEE Proceedings on Medical Imaging: Macro to Nano. Vol.2006 (2):1384-1387.
  • Rui-Cruz S., R. Gonzalez, Y. Luo, Y. Tao, G. González, 2006. Effect of Acidified Sodium Chlorite Applications on Microbial Growth and the Quality of Shredded Carrots. J of Food Science. JSFA-05-0312. Vol 86: 1887-1893.
  • Zhu, B., L. Jiang, Y. Luo, Y. Tao, and X. Cheng. 2006. 3D Surface Reconstruction and Analysis in Automated Apple Stem-end/Calyx Identification. International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence.
  • Vargas, A.M., M.S. Kim, Y. Tao, A.M. Lefcourt, YR Chen, Y. Luo, Y. Song. 2006. Hyperspectal Imaging Detection of Strawberry contamination. J. of Food Engineering.
  • Jin, F., L, Qin, X. Rao, Y. Tao. 2007. Classification of walnut shell and meat using rotation invariant features and self-organizing map. Trans. of ASABE.
  • Allende-Prieto, A., J. McEvoyb, Y. Tao, and Y. Luo, 2005. Antimicrobial  effect  of  sodium hypochlorite, acidified  sodium  chlorite, sodium chlorite and citric acid on Escherichia coli O157:H7  and natural  microflora  of  intact  and sliced cilantro. International Journal of Food Microbiology.
  • Ma, L. and Y. Tao. 2005. An Infrared and Laser Range Imaging System for Non-invasive Estimation of Internal Temperatures in Cooked Chicken Breasts. Trans. of ASAE, Vol. 48(2):681-690.
  • Vargas, A., M. Kim, Y. Tao, A.M. Lefcourt, Y. Luo, Y.R. Chen, 2004. Detection of fecal contamination on cantaloupes using hyperspectral fluorescence imagery. Journal of Food Engineering. Vol.70(8-2005):471-476.
  • Kim, J.G., Y. Luo, Y. Tao, R.A. Saftner, and K.C. Gross. 2005 (as co-author). Effect of initial oxygen concentration and film oxygen transmission rate on the quality of fresh-cut romaine lettuce. Journal of the Science of Food Agriculture, Vol. 85(2005):1622-1630.
  • Kim, M., A.M. Lefcourt, Y.R. Chen, and Y. Tao. 2005. (as co-author). Automated Detection of Fecal Contamination of Apples Based on Multispectral Fluorescence Image Fusion. J. of Food Engineering, Vol. 71(1): 85-91.
  • Tao, Y., Z. Chen, and C. Griffis. 2004. Chick feather pattern recognition. IEE Proc–Vision, Image and Signal Processing, Vol. 151(5): 337-344.
  • Cheng, X., Y.R. Chen, Y. Tao, C.Y. Wang, M.S. Kim, A.M. Lefcourt. 2004. A noval integrated PCA and FLD method on hyperspectral image feature extraction for cucumber chilling damage inspection. Trans of ASAE. 47(4):1313-1320.
  • X. Cheng, Y. Tao, Y. R. Chen, and Y. Luo. 2003. NIR/MIR dual-sensor machine vision system for online apple stem-end/calyx recognition. Transactions of ASAE, Vol. 46(2):551-558.
  • Ying, Y., H.Jing, Y. Tao, and N. Zhang. 2003. Detecting stem and shape of pears using Fourier transformation and an artificial neural network. Transactions of ASAE. Vol. 46(1):157–162.
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