Bernie H. Zhu

I am a Ph.D. student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of ashington, advised by Prof. Banghua Zhu. I work on foundational models and general-purpose robots. Previously, I built, trained, and worked with Geodude, a custom dexterous bimanual robot.
Before joining UW, I worked as a mechanical engineer in Africa❓How come? It's a long story. Let's save it for when we can talk in person.Prior to that, I was a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Prof. Christopher Atkeson and Prof. Katerina Fragkiadaki. I graduated with High Honors from Zhejiang University, earning a bachelor's degree in computer science with a minor in electronic engineering.

My work is TRASHℹ️After several failed attempts to create my CMU username, "trash" unexpectedly worked, so I had to come up with an acronym for it. Teaching Robotic Agents Skills of Humans

Physical embodied AI
General-purpose robots
Foundation models
Vision-language models and reinforcement learning

News

[Dec 02, 2024] Yet another paper on ADA was accepted and nominated for Best Systems Paper at HRI 2025. [Mar 13, 2024] Another demo on ADA won the Best Demo Award at HRI 2024. [Nov 03, 2023] I won the UW CSE baking competition! A photo🖼️ 📷 by Ethan Gordonof me and 🏆. Check out the recipe. [Aug 30, 2023] One paper on ADA accepted at CoRL 2023. [Jul 10, 2023] I attended RSS 2023 for our workshop paper. [Jul 12, 2022] My F-1 visa was approved in Consulado General de Estados Unidos en Hermosillo! [Feb 13, 2022] I moved to Casablanca, Morocco. This is the first stop of my worldwide wandering. [Feb 23, 2020] SAPIEN accepted at CVPR 2020. [Oct 30, 2019] I attended CoRL 2019 to give a presentation. Huge thanks to organizers for providing wheelchair for me! [Sep 07, 2019] S4G accepted at CoRL 2019. [Jun 16, 2019] I attended CVPR 2019, my first conference. [Mar 02, 2019] CrowdPose accepted at CVPR 2019.

Selected Publications
Full list available on

SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironment
Fanbo Xiang, Yuzhe Qin, Kaichun Mo, Yikuan Xia, Hao Zhu, Fangchen Liu, Minghua Liu, Hanxiao Jiang, Yifu Yuan, He Wang, Li Yi, Angel X.Chang, Leonidas J. Guibas, Hao Su
CVPR 2020, Oral Presentation
[Paper] [Project] [Video]

We build SAPIEN simulator: an interaction-rich and physics-realistic simulation environment integrating PhysX engine and ROS control interface. I lead the team of building SAPIEN dataset: more than 2K 3D articulated models with 14K movable parts. The dataset is richly annotated with kinematic part motions and dynamic interactive attributes to support robot interaction.

S4G: Amodal Single-view Single-Shot SE(3) Grasp Detection in Cluttered Scenes
Yuzhe Qin*, Rui Chen*, Hao Zhu, Meng Song, Jing Xu, Hao Su (*Equal contribution)
CoRL 2019, Spotlight Presentation
[Paper] [Project] [Video] [Presentation]

We studied the problem of 6-DoF grasping by a parallel gripper in a cluttered scene captured using a commodity depth sensor from a single view point. Our learning based approach trained in a synthetic scene can work well in real-world scenarios, with improved speed and success rate compared with state-of-the-arts.

Miscellaneous

Trivia

My last name, Zhu (朱), is pronounced "jew," not "zoo." My signature above includes both my Chinese and English names. I'm known for my photographic memory, which consistently gives me an advantage in games and tests that require memorization :-D I lost my hearing completely in my early 20s but regained some of it after learning to read lips. Speaking louder would be appreciated. I traveled the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. I love adventure and offer local tour guidance in Mexico and beyond.

Hobbies

Cooking I cook in a Western style but with Chinese flavors. I'll open my own restaurantChef BZ Asian Fusion Cuisine 厨子很忙™ one day.

Games I excel at strategy games, board games, and poker gamesℹ️I was kicked out 3 times in a day for winning too much at blackjack♠️ in Las Vegas😂.

Music I enjoy classical and electronic music, especially trance and techno. My favorites: Click the icon to play/pause the music -- Castor by Daft Punk. I play the piano and suonaSuona is a traditional Chinese double-reed wind instrument often used in folk music and ceremonies such as weddings and funerals..

Trading I consider myself a proficient trader in options and day trading. I achieved a 20x profit🚀Thank you NVDA! in 2 weeks during mid-2024.