Rate My Professor Jindong Tan

Jindong Tan is Professor and Associate Department Head in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has been a faculty member at the university since 2012, initially as Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering, and promoted to Professor in 2015. Prior to joining UTK, Tan served as Assistant Professor from 2002 to 2008 and Associate Professor from 2008 to 2011 in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Technological University. He began his academic career as Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in Shenyang, China, from 1995 to 1998. Tan holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University (2002), an MS from Northeastern University (1995), and a BS from Lanzhou University of Technology (1992).

Tan's research focuses on medical and surgical robotics, human-robot interactions, wearable sensors, control and systems, and mechatronics, with additional interests in robotics, sensor networks, machine learning, and biomedical imaging. He has published over 120 papers in these fields and has garnered more than 5,700 citations. Key publications include 'DietCam: Automatic dietary assessment with mobile camera phones' (Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 2012), 'Heartbeat-driven medium-access control for body sensor networks' (IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2010), 'Sambot: A self-assembly modular robot system' (IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, 2011), 'Accurate human navigation using wearable monocular visual and inertial sensors' (IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 2014), and 'Two-tier target tracking framework in distributed sensor networks' (International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2014). In October 2025, he received a $1 million NSF grant to develop an AI-powered fully insertable wireless robotic imaging device for laparoscopic surgeries, collaborating with Gregory Mancini and Jonathan DeLong. Tan served as program co-chair for the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009) and the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2014), and as a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Activities Board. In August 2024, he was appointed Interim Program Director for Biomedical Engineering to lead the transition to an independent department. He received the Toby Boulet Outstanding Faculty Service Award and was a recipient of the 2025 Chancellor's Innovation Award as part of the Skillfold Robotics team with Shuai Li and Weizi Li.