Faculty Directory

Tao, Yang

Tao, Yang

Fischell Family Distinguished Professor
Fischell Department of Bioengineering
Maryland Robotics Center
4120 A. James Clark Hall

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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