Rate My Professor Yuen Yong

Associate Professor Yuen Kuan Yong serves in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computing within the Engineering faculty at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she also acts as Associate Director of the Precision Mechatronics Lab. She obtained her B.Eng. degree with First Class Honours in Mechatronic Engineering in 2001 and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2007, both from the University of Adelaide. Her professional journey commenced as a Lecturer and Tutor at the University of Adelaide from 2002 to 2006. In 2011, she joined the University of Newcastle as a Research Academic, advancing to Postdoctoral Fellow in 2012, ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow from 2013 to 2017, and her current role as Associate Professor. Yong's research focuses on the design and control of nanopositioning systems, high-speed atomic force microscopy, finite-element analysis of smart materials and structures, sensing and actuation, microcantilever design and fabrication, microelectromechanical systems, and bio-inspired miniature robots such as insect-inspired designs.

Yong has garnered significant recognition for her contributions, including the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence and the Pro Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research Performance in 2014, the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Supervision Excellence in 2017, the ARC DECRA Fellowship in 2013, a University Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2012, and multiple Best Conference Paper Awards and Finalists from 2008 to 2019. She has secured major funding, such as an ARC Discovery Project grant of $296,000 in 2017 for novel microcantilevers in multifrequency atomic force microscopy and her ARC DECRA grant of $375,000. Notable publications include 'Video-Rate Lissajous-Scan Atomic Force Microscopy' (IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 2014), 'A new preload mechanism for a high-speed piezoelectric stack nanopositioner' (Mechatronics, 2016), 'Mechanical design of high-speed nanopositioning systems' (2015), and 'High-speed vertical positioning stage with integrated dual-sensor arrangement' (Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 2016). With over 1,700 citations and an h-index of 19 on Google Scholar, her work profoundly influences precision mechatronics. Additionally, she serves as Associate Editor for the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems since 2012, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics since 2017, and Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering. Yong has contributed to numerous conference technical program committees, organized invited sessions, and delivered plenary speeches at events like the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales in 2018 and 2020.