International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Nanning ZHENG

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences in 2006, Professor Nanning Zheng is a Chinese scientist in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and pattern recognition, whose work has focused on cognitive computing, intelligent systems, advanced computing architectures, and autonomous driving. Born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in December 1952, he studied electrical engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University, where he graduated in 1975 and received a Master of Engineering in 1981. He subsequently earned a Doctor of Engineering from Keio University, Japan, in 1985 and returned to Xi’an Jiaotong University after postdoctoral research. In 1986, he co-founded the university’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, one of China’s early centres for AI research and postgraduate training. He served as Vice President and subsequently President of Xi’an Jiaotong University from 2003 to 2014, concurrently serving as Dean of its Graduate School. He is currently Professor and Director of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Director of the National Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Hybrid Augmented Intelligence, and Chairman of the National Engineering Laboratory for Visual Information Processing and Application. He has also held senior roles in national science and technology programmes, including Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Expert Committee for the Information Technology Field of the 863 Programme. He is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, an IEEE Fellow, and has served in leadership roles in the Chinese Association of Automation and the International Association for Pattern Recognition. His honours include the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, the China Youth Scientist Award, and the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Outstanding Research Team Award.

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Professor Zheng’s research has centred on computer vision, pattern recognition, and cognitive computing, organised around a framework linking perception, cognition, and coordination. His work on stereo correspondence for visual scene understanding and statistical learning for visual attention has contributed to the theoretical and computational foundations of computer vision and image-based intelligent control. He has also pursued the translation of these methods into engineering systems, including visual information and image-processing technologies for aerospace applications, machine vision and automatic vehicle and licence-plate recognition, robotic assembly, and digital video processing. These achievements have received two National Science and Technology Progress Awards, a National Technological Invention Award, and a National Natural Science Award. Since 2000, he has focused extensively on autonomous driving, developing the unmanned vehicle “Xianfeng” and investigating AI architectures based on selective attention, intuitive reasoning, and hierarchical metric, topological, and semantic representations of driving environments. His research has also addressed human–machine collaboration, safety, and trustworthy AI. He has contributed to national AI strategy and education through advisory work for the Ministry of Science and Technology and leadership of pilot reforms in undergraduate AI education. Through sustained research, engineering development, and the training of scientists and engineers, Professor Zheng has contributed to the development of artificial intelligence, computer vision, and intelligent systems in China.