Center for PFAS Research

Dr. Xiaobo Tan is an MSU Foundation Professor and the Richard M. Hong Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in automatic control from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995, 1998, respectively, and his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland in 2002. His research interests include underwater robotics, soft robotics, smart materials, and control systems. He has published over 300 papers and been awarded six US patents in these areas. Dr. Tan is a Fellow of IEEE and ASME. He was a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2006), MSU Teacher-Scholar Award (2010), MSU College of Engineering Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award (2018), Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Maryland (2018), MSU William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award, and multiple best paper awards. Dr. Tan is keen to integrate his research with educational and outreach activities, and has served as the PI of an NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program on addressing real-world water problems (2023-2028), Director of an NSF-funded Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Site program (2009 – 2016), and Curator of a robotic fish exhibit at MSU Museum (2016-2017). He has served the professional community in different capacities, including being a member of ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division Executive Committee, and the general chair of 2018 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference and 2023 American Control Conference. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief-elect for IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics