About Me
Hi, my name is Junheng, I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California. I work with Professor Quan Nguyen at the Dynamic Robotics and Control Laboratory. My research focuses on dynamic control of humanoid robots in locomotion and manipulation (loco-manipulation) through model-based control strategies such as Model Predictive Control (MPC), Whole-body Control (WBC), and Trajectory Optimization (TO). I have served as the lead on HECTOR project.
Education
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, 2022 - present
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, 2020 - 2021
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Loyola Marymount University, 2016 - 2020
Publications and Projects

Gu, Z., Li, J., Shen, W., Yu, W., Xie, Z., McCrory, S., Cheng, X., Shamsah, A., Griffin, R., Liu, C. K., Kheddar, A., Peng, X. B., Zhu, Y., Shi, G., Nguyen, Q., Cheng, G., Gao, H., Zhao, Y. (2025).
arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.02116.

Li, J., Duan, Z., Ma, J., Nguyen, Q. (2025).
arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.02934.

Li, J., Le, Z., Ma, J., Nguyen, Q. (2025).
Accepted by ICRA 2025.

Chi, A. C., Li, J., Park, J., Kolt, O., Beiter, B., Leonessa, A., Nguyen, Q., Akbari Hamed, K. (2025).
Accepted by ICRA 2025.

Chen, Q., Li, J., Cheng, S., Hovakimyan, N., Nguyen, Q. (2024).
arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.15710.

Li, J., Kolt, O., Nguyen, Q. (2024).
arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.11807.

Li, J., Ma, J., Kolt, O., Shah, M., Nguyen, Q. (2023).
arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.11868.

Li, J., Nguyen, Q. (2023).
2023 IEEE-RAS 22nd International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids).

Li, J., Nguyen, Q. (2023).
2023 IEEE American Control Conference (ACC).

Li, J., Nguyen, Q. (2023).
IEEE Control Systems Letters.

Li, J., Nguyen, Q. (2022).
2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

Li, J., Nguyen, Q. (2021).
2021 60th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC).