Mengyun LIU

Highlights

Ph.D. in Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (Wuhan University, LIESMARS; Remote Sensing ranked 1st globally since 2017) with postdoctoral training in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at HKUST, complemented by an interdisciplinary dual degree in Engineering and Business Administration. Active research spans ubiquitous positioning, embodied navigation, and AI for education, continuously feeding authentic engineering cases into project-based learning. Brings extensive leadership across tech and policy, serving as a PNT specialist drafting HKSAR Lands Department's Pervasive Positioning Standard and a seconded expert to the Guangzhou DRC/AI Industry Office contributing to local AI legislation to bridge technical prototypes with regional policy and industry needs.

Research Interests

  • GeoAI and Spatial Data Science
  • Ubiquitous Positioning, Navigation and Mobile Mapping
  • Edge AI and Embodied Navigation
  • Human-Centered AI
  • AI for Education

Work Experience

  • Government Seconded Staff, Guangzhou Municipal Artificial Intelligence Industry Development Office, Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission, 05/2025 – 07/2026

  • Distinguished Associate Researcher, School of Artificial Intelligence, Guangzhou University, 03/2023 – Present

  • Research Associate (ITC Fund) / Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 06/2020 – 10/2022

  • Research Assistant, Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 10/2019 – 03/2020

  • Research Intern, Wireless and Networking Group, Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing), 11/2014 – 04/2015

Selected Projects

  • Object Recognition and Tracking in Challenging Underwater Environments, 12/2024 – 12/2025
    Led project application and proposal writing, mentored students in developing multimodal learning-based underwater object recognition and tracking schemes.

  • Underwater Positioning and Navigation with Commercial Devices, 03/2023 – 03/2024
    Designed underwater positioning and navigation methods tailored for resource-constrained platforms.

  • Pilot Project: Ubiquitous Positioning Infrastructure of Hong Kong for Smart City Development, Lands Department, HKSAR Government, 09/2021 – 10/2022
    Led project application and proposal writing, drafted an international research and review report on ubiquitous positioning technologies, standards, and policies. [More details]

  • RGC Project: Toward Ubiquitous Indoor Localization Using Implicit Fingerprint Crowdsourcing, Hong Kong Research Grants Council, 06/2020 – 10/2022
    Led the localization team to address limitations of fingerprint-based localization.

Selected Publications

  • Mengyun Liu. "CRISP: Trustworthy Implicit Fingerprinting Under Map Dilemma." UPINLBS 2026, Hefei, China, 6-8 November, 2026. (Full paper accepted for oral presentation)
  • Mengyun Liu, Shanshan Huang, Jianan Jiang. "EdgeNav-QE: QLoRA Quantization and Dynamic Early Exit for LAM-Based Navigation on Edge Devices." ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications. 22(10):1-21, October 2026.
  • Zhenxin Zhang, Ziyu Ding, Mengyun Liu*, Haiwei Sang. "RACES: Reward-Aligned Consistent Essay Scoring with Large Language Models." International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, Springer Nature. 23:31, 2026. (*Corresponding author)
  • Haiwei Sang, Mengyun Liu*, Jing Tang, Yuxiang Yang, Yuling Chen*. "Knowledge-Augmented Form-Filling Agent for Higher Education Services." International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, Springer Nature. 23:36, 2026. (*Corresponding author)
  • Weipeng Zhuo, Shiju Li, Tianlang He, Mengyun Liu, S.-H. Gary Chan, Sangtae Ha, Chul-Ho Lee. "Online Path Description Learning Based on IMU Signals from IoT Devices." IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 23(12):11889-11906, May 2024.
  • Guanyao Li, Chih-Chieh Huang, Mengyun Liu, Linfei Pan, Wen-Chih Peng, S.-H. Gary Chan. "Spatial-Temporal Similarity for Trajectories with Location Noise and Sporadic Sampling." In Proceedings of 37th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), Chania, Crete, Greece, pp. 1224-1235, 19-22 April, 2021.
  • Jiajie Tan, Edmund Sumpena, Weipeng Zhuo, Ziqi Zhao, Mengyun Liu, S.-H. Gary Chan. "IoT Geofencing for COVID-19 Home Quarantine Enforcement." IEEE Internet of Things Magazine, 3(3):24-29, September 2020.
  • Mengyun Liu, Ruizhi Chen, Deren Li, Yujin Chen, Guangyi Guo, Zhipeng Cao, Yuanjin Pan. "Scene Recognition for Indoor Localization Using a Multi-Sensor Fusion Approach." Sensors, 17(12):2847, December 2017.
  • Haojun Ai, Mengyun Liu*, Yuming Shi, Jinqi Zhao. "Floor Identification with Commercial Smartphones in WiFi-based Indoor Localization System." ISPRS Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, pp. 573-577, 12-19 July, 2016. (*Corresponding author)

Patents & Standards

  • Patented (China). "System and Method for Micro-Star Base Station Positioning Based on Single or Multiple Bluetooth Transmitting Units", May 5, 2020, CN201710529644.3.
  • Standard Draft Document. "Pervasive Positioning Standard for Fingerprint-based and Proximity-based Systems", Pilot Study, Survey and Mapping Office, Lands Department. 2023.

Awards

  • Letter of Commendation from Guangzhou Government for Outstanding Services, 2025
  • Merit Award, the 2nd Navy "Golden Dolphin" Cup Algorithm Challenge Competition, 2023
  • Top 6%, Microsoft Research Indoor Location and Navigation Competition on Kaggle, 2021
  • Top 10%, Google Code Jam Kickstart Competition (Global Ranking 185/1861), 2018
  • 1st place, NIST PerfLoc Indoor Positioning Competition (Team Award), 2018
  • Best Oral Presentation Award of International Graduate Workshops on GeoInformatics, 2017
  • Technology Innovation Award of LIESMARS (50,000 RMB), 2017
  • Student Scholarship of Collaborative Innovation Center of Geospatial Technology, 2015
  • Outstanding Student & Student Leader, Wuhan University, 2011 & 2012

Academic Service

Journal Reviewer: IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Sensors Journal

Conference Reviewer: IEEE INFOCOM, ACM IMWUT / UbiComp / BMVC

Talks & Teaching

Talks:

  • "Design Thinking Under Uncertainty: From Campus Wayfinding to Ubiquitous Positioning." Lecture at the Base of Red Bird MPhil, College of Future Technology, HKUST(GZ), 28 Oct 2026 | [slides]

Courses (co-advised with Prof. Gary Chan, CSE, HKUST):

  • UROP1000 (Summer 2022) / UROP1100 (Fall 2021 / Spring 2021 / Fall 2020) — AI Meets Big Data: User Analytics and Personalized Recommendation Based on Location Data
  • Independent Project (Fall 2021) — Video Analytics and IoT Sensing for Smart City and New Retail

Research Tips

Personal Interests

Jogging, hiking, and orienteering.