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Pengsong Zhang

Ph.D. Candidate
University of Toronto
pengsong.zhang (at) mail.utoronto.ca


Bio

I am currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at University of Toronto. I am fortunate to work with Prof. Xinyu Liu.

My research lies at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence, with a special focus on automated scientific discovery. My research interests include Microrobotics, Robot Scientists, AI Scientists, Computer vision, 3D reconstruction, Generative models, Reinforcement learning, LLM agents, and AI4S.

I am currently seeking postdoctoral opportunities in robotics, embodied AI, and AI for scientific discovery, and expect to complete my Ph.D. in December 2026.

News

Publications [Google Scholar][DBLP]

  1. AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable Nature
    AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable
    Guowei Huang, Xiang Hu, Pengsong Zhang, Zhicheng Lin
    (Co-project leader)
    Nature (Comment), 658, 32–33, 2026.
    Article DOI

  2. Three-dimensional reconfigurable magnetic microswarms with boundary-transcending capabilities SA
    Three-dimensional reconfigurable magnetic microswarms with boundary-transcending capabilities
    Pengsong Zhang, Pengfei Xu, Peng Pan, Yuntong Sun, Shaojia Wang, et al.
    Science Advances (SA), 12(37), eaeh4267, 2026.
    PDF

  3. AI Scholar: Learning the Scientific Taste of Elite Researchers to Predict Future Discovery Trajectories aiXiv
    AI Scholar: Learning the Scientific Taste of Elite Researchers to Predict Future Discovery Trajectories
    OpenAGS
    Preprint (aiXiv), aixiv.260224.000001, 2026. (Proposal, AI authored)
    PDF

  4. Synergy of robotics and microfluidics for intelligent micro- and nanomanipulation BMF
    Synergy of robotics and microfluidics for intelligent micro- and nanomanipulation
    Mengmeng Xi*, Pengsong Zhang*, Junyue Dai, Jia Shi, Haoran Cui, Bowen Wang, Junhui Zhu, Peng PAN, Xinyu Liu
    (* Equal contribution)
    Biomicrofluidics (BMF), 19, 051301, 2025.
    PDF

  5. aiXiv: A Next-Generation Open Access Ecosystem for Scientific Discovery Generated by AI Scientists arXiv
    aiXiv: A Next-Generation Open Access Ecosystem for Scientific Discovery Generated by AI Scientists
    Pengsong Zhang, Xiang Hu, Guowei Huang, Yang Qi, Heng Zhang, Xiuxu Li, Jiaxing Song, Jiabin Luo, Yijiang Li, Shuo Yin, Chengxiao Dai, Eric Hanchen Jiang, Xiaoyan Zhou, Zhenfei Yin, Boqin Yuan, Jing Dong, Guinan Su, Guanren Qiao, Haiming Tang, Anghong Du, Lili Pan, Zhenzhong Lan, Xinyu Liu
    Preprint (arXiv), arXiv:2508.15126, 2025.
    PDF

  6. Scaling Laws in Scientific Discovery with AI and Robot Scientists arXiv
    Scaling Laws in Scientific Discovery with AI and Robot Scientists
    Pengsong Zhang, Heng Zhang, Huazhe Xu, Renjun Xu, Zhenting Wang, Cong Wang, Animesh Garg, Zhibin Li, Arash Ajoudani, Xinyu Liu
    Preprint (arXiv), arXiv:2503.22444, 2025.
    PDF

  7. Robotic microinjection enables large-scale transgenic studies of Caenorhabditis elegans NC
    Robotic microinjection enables large-scale transgenic studies of Caenorhabditis elegans
    Peng Pan, Michael Zoberman, Pengsong Zhang et al.
    Nature Communications (NC), 15, Article number 8848, 2024.

  8. High-Resolution Imaging and Morphological Phenotyping of C. elegans through Stable Robotic Sample Rotation and Artificial Intelligence-Based 3-Dimensional Reconstruction Research
    High-Resolution Imaging and Morphological Phenotyping of C. elegans through Stable Robotic Sample Rotation and Artificial Intelligence-Based 3-Dimensional Reconstruction
    Peng Pan*, Pengsong Zhang*, Sharanja Premachandran et al.
    (* Equal contribution)
    Science Partner Journal (Research), Vol 7, Article ID 0513, 2024.

  9. Novel coil array design and modeling for independent control of multiple magnetic microrobots TIE
    Novel coil array design and modeling for independent control of multiple magnetic microrobots
    Guangming Cui, Pengsong Zhang, Xinyu Liu, Linbo Xie, Wentao Huang, Peng Pan, Juntian Qu, Qigao Fan
    IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (TIE), Volume 70, Number 10, 2023.
    PDF BibTex

  10. Dynamic magnetic field generation with high accuracy modeling applied to magnetic robots TMAG
    Dynamic magnetic field generation with high accuracy modeling applied to magnetic robots
    Qigao Fan, Pengsong Zhang, Juntian Qu, Wentao Huang, Xinyu Liu, Linbo Xie
    ( Corresponding author)
    IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (TMAG), Volume 57, Number 7, 2021.
    PDF BibTex

  11. Boundary-free Robots CSME
    Boundary-free Robots
    Pengsong Zhang, Peng Pan, Shaojia Wang, Runze Zuo, Tiancong Wang, Wentian Tang, Yuhang Wang, Mingzhe Sun, Qiwu Zhang, Yuxiao Zhou, Yu Sun, Xinyu Liu
    Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME), ID 241, 2024.

  12. Autonomous Generalist Scientist - Towards and Beyond Human-level Automatic Research Using Foundation Model-Based AI Agents and Robots (A Position) Preprint
    Autonomous Generalist Scientist - Towards and Beyond Human-level Automatic Research Using Foundation Model-Based AI Agents and Robots (A Position)
    Pengsong Zhang, Alfredo Pearson, Zhenting Wang
    Researchgate, 2024.
    PDF BibTex

  13. Awesome AI Scientist Papers Github
    Awesome AI Scientist Papers
    Pengsong Zhang, Heng Zhang
    A collection of important papers to the field of AI Scientist and Robot Scientist, Github Repos, 2024.

Invited Talks

Micro-/nano robotics

Awards

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Teaching

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Contact

Address: 5 King's College Rd, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8
Office Location: MB75
Email: pengsong.zhang (at) mail.utoronto.ca
Phone: (647) 269-61xx



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