Xiayu Zhao is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Master student in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received her bachelor’s degree from Tianjin University and earned her master's degree from Tsinghua University. Xiayu worked as a Research Engineer at Tsinghua University. Her research focuses on endowing aerial robots with ground mobility and multimodal perception for autonomous Inspection. Beyond research, Xiayu enjoys playing tennis, hiking, and game development.