I’m Boxi Xia, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University working with Prof. Boyuan Chen in the General Robotics Lab. My research spans the full pipeline from robot hardware design and fabrication through simulation, learning, and real-world deployment — with a focus on legged locomotion systems including humanoids and soft robots.
Research
I develop learning-based control algorithms using reinforcement learning and build physics-based simulators to enable efficient robot design and control. Recent projects include designing the Duke Humanoid (a 10-DOF child-sized bipedal robot for energy-efficient locomotion using passive dynamics) and Text2Robot (a framework that uses generative AI to automatically design and manufacture quadrupedal robots from text descriptions). My latest work, Argus, introduces dynamic symmetry as a design principle — showing that maximizing the uniformity of a robot’s attainable center-of-mass accelerations leads to dramatically improved robustness, agility, and energy efficiency.
Areas of Expertise
Robot hardware design
Humanoid & legged locomotion
Reinforcement learning
Soft robotics & actuators
Physics simulation (CUDA, PBD)
3D printing & rapid prototyping
Deep learning
Experience
2023 – present
Postdoctoral Researcher — Duke University
General Robotics Lab, advised by Prof. Boyuan Chen. Legged robot design, whole-body control, morphology-varying reinforcement learning.
2022 – 2023
Senior Machine Learning Engineer — XPENG Robotics
Santa Clara, CA. Vision-free end-to-end controllers and model-based locomotion controllers for quadrupedal robots.
2017 – 2021
Ph.D. Researcher — Columbia University
Creative Machines Lab, advised by Prof. Hod Lipson. Soft robotics, evolutionary computation, and machine learning for robot design.
Education
2021
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering — Columbia University
Advisor: Prof. Hod Lipson · Focus: Soft robotics, evolutionary computation, machine learning for robot design
2017
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Robotics) — Columbia University
Focus: Robotics, control systems, and artificial intelligence
2016
B.Eng. in Machine Design, Manufacturing & Automation — HUST
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
Press & Media Coverage
Fox News
Text2Robot: AI automatically designs and 3D-prints walking robots from text descriptions — 2025
IEEE Spectrum
Coverage of Flexipod soft legged robot achieving high-speed locomotion and backflips — 2019
Duke University
Research Spotlight Talk, Responsible AI Symposium — 2025
Recognition & Honors
- Member of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society
- Inventor on provisional patent DU8960PROV (Argusbot), Duke University (2024)
- Active reviewer: IROS, ICRA, CoRL, IEEE RA-L, Springer Nature Journals