Qijia Shao

Qijia Shao

Assistant Professor @Mobile Computing, HCI

Hello! I am Qijia Shao, an Assistant Professor in ISD and CSE at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). I direct the Ubiquitous X Lab.

Before joining HKUST, I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University (advised by Xia Zhou and Fred Jiang ), my master's degree from Dartmouth College， and my bachelor's degree from UESTC. My research interests lie broadly in mobile & ubiquitous computing and its intersection with other disciplines. Please check out our demo videos to learn more on our recent work.

Research

At Ubiquitous X Lab, we create practically deployable new sensing rationales and generalizable AI systems to understand human behavior and physiology, with applications in healthcare, education, and interaction. Our work focuses on two complementary directions.

Hardware & System Design

Build unobtrusive systems that capture useful human signals while preserving a natural, comfortable user experience.

Software & Algorithms

Develop computationally efficient algorithms that work with limited data and generalize to new users and environments.

Recent News

Earlier news

  • Our paper “My Pillow Knows My Sleep: Sleep Monitoring with Computational Fabrics in the Pillowcase” has been accepted by IMWUT/UbiComp2025. Though it doesn’t yet match my ideal vision, this system represents a cool and effective design for passive sleep monitoring. We can sense your ECG and neck EMG with your pillowcase, and you won’t feel a thing! For a deeper dive, see the paper here!

  • Serving as a Local Co-chair for MobiCom 2025. See you all in Hong Kong!

  • Joey was highlighted in GetMobile from ACM SIGMOBILE!

  • Invited to serve as TPC for ACM SenSys 2025, please consider submitting!

  • Invited to join the Editorial Board of ACM IMWUT as an Associate Editor, please consider submitting!

  • Invited to serve as TPC for ACM MobiSys 2025, please consider submitting!

  • Humbled to be named the finalist for the UbiComp/IMWUT Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award!

  • Arrived in Hong Kong and officially started at HKUST!

  • Invited to serve as a keynote speaker in UbiComp MIMSVAI 2024 Workshop! See you in Melbourne!

  • Successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation! A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who supported me along this journey!

  • Thrilled to receive the Best Paper Award, the Best Demo Award (People’s Choice) and the Best Presentation Award of the Rising Stars Forum at MobiSys 2024!

  • Selected as one of the Rising Stars in Cyber-Physical Systems!

  • Selected as one of the MobiSys Rising Stars 2024!

  • Our paper “Joey:Supporting Kangaroo Mother Care with Computational Fabrics” has been conditionally accepted to MobiSys 2024. The hardest user study ever! But I’m immensely proud of this work. We introduced a fabric-based physiological sensing system to unobtrusively monitor the infant’s ECGs and the skin-to-skin contact between the infant and the caregiver. The potential to enhance Kangaroo Mother Care (for pre-term babies!) holds significant importance and meaning for me! Please check out the paper here and project website for more details!

  • Gave an invited talk at CUHK. Thank Prof. Guoliang Xing for the host!

  • My internship work “Normalization is All You Need: Robust Full-Range Contactless SpO2 Estimation Across Users” at Samsung Research is accepted at ICASSP 2024 as an oral presentation! We proposed a simple yet effective algorithm to handle the cross-user variation (e.g., different skin tones and ages). The proposed algorithm is an A1 patent for Samsung and now being deployed to Samsung products! Please check out our paper here!

  • Gave an invited talk at North Carolina State University and a guest lecture in CS 6998 at Columbia University.

  • Won the Best Demo Award at MobiCom 2023 and the Best Teaser Award at UbiComp 2023.

  • Happy and honored to serve as a JEDI Ambassador for UbiComp/ISWC 2023. I eagerly anticipate collaborating with the JEDI chairs to ensure UbiComp/ISWC 2023 is both accessible and inclusive for all attendees. See you in Cancun!