Assistant Professor Sheng Li Received the Next-Generation-Star Award at IROS 2025

In 2025, Assistant Professor Sheng Li from the School of Engineering, Tokyo Tech, received the prestigious Next-Generation-Star Award at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2025) held in Hangzhou, China.

The Next-Generation-Star Award honors promising early-career researchers who are expected to shape the future of robotics. The selection criteria include originality, future potential, and international impact.

Assistant Professor Li previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher in an ERATO project involving ATR, Kyoto University, and Osaka University, where he developed the speech engine for the humanoid robot Erica. Over the past ten years, he has been engaged in research on speech recognition and translation, as well as on upgrading robotic speech interfaces. More recently, his work has focused on leveraging state-of-the-art foundation models to build next-generation conversational interfaces for robots.

These long-term contributions and research achievements were highly valued by the IROS community and led to this award. This international recognition is a significant accomplishment for Tokyo Tech, and we look forward to Assistant Professor Li’s further contributions in the field of intelligent robotics.

Related Links

• New Generation Star Project ‪@IROS2025‬ | YouTube