I'm a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, building probabilistic models that help robots reason about uncertainty in what people will do next, so they can collaborate safely.
Outside the lab, I'm a serial hobbyist. I shoot astro, bird, portrait, and event photography, which is probably how my obsession with perception systems started long before grad school. I run, lift, climb, and am training for my first triathlon. I also play guitar and drums and sing (not simultaneously, though I'm working on it).
Now: Seeking Summer 2027 robotics research internship in perception, human motion prediction, or uncertainty-aware autonomy/HRI. [CV]
Highlights
Autonomous Pool-Playing Robot
Heuristic shot planning, IK, and inverse-dynamics control sank target balls in randomized simulations.
Autonomous Racecar Stack
Vision-based lane following and RRT/PRM path planning for a 1/10-scale autonomous racecar.
Water Bottle Flipping Quadrotor
Direct-collocation trajectories flipped a bottle across four fill levels in simulation.
Publications
- Structured Multitask Gaussian Processes for Probabilistic Full-Body Human Motion Prediction
J. Chong, X. Zhang, K. Youcef-Toumi · ICRA 2027 · Under review - How Does Perception Affect Safety: New Metrics and Strategy
X. Zhang, J. Chong, K. Youcef-Toumi · ICRA 2024 · Published - Multi-Function Hinge
J. Chong, D. Yaremenko, B. Tomky, D. Caplow-Munro · US 2026/0143604 A1 · 2026 · Pending