Hongrui Yi

OCT · Biomedical imaging · Surgical robotics

Hongrui (Horace) Yi

易弘睿

Ph.D. Student, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

OCT for biomedical imaging.
AI for surgical guidance.

I combine biomedical optical imaging, computational modeling, and AI to study tissue and support image-guided robotic microsurgery.

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Hongrui Yi holding a camera
Hongrui (Horace) YiBaltimore, Maryland
Intelligent Optical Imaging and Vision Laboratory (iOIV) Kang Lab

About

Connecting OCT, tissue modeling, and surgical guidance.

I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where I work with Professor Jin U. Kang in the Intelligent Optical Imaging and Vision Laboratory (iOIV / Kang Lab). I began my doctoral studies in August 2025, following an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins.

My research centers on optical coherence tomography (OCT), with a focus on corneal imaging and image-guided surgical robotics. I connect computer vision and deep learning with models of tissue scattering and light transport to study both image formation and image interpretation. My broader interests include AI-assisted biomedical image analysis and high-resolution 3D/4D OCT.

My undergraduate training at the University of Cincinnati and Chongqing University provided a foundation in mechanical engineering that continues to inform how I approach imaging systems and robotics.

Research

Selected directions & ongoing work

From tissue optics
to surgical guidance.

Three connected directions: tracking corneal interfaces for robotic microsurgery, modeling how light forms OCT images, and extracting quantitative information with AI.

Image-guided surgical robotics

OCT-guided robotic microsurgery

I combine deep-learning boundary estimation with Kalman filtering to study corneal interface tracking in OCT data for deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK). The focus is on temporally consistent estimates that can support image-guided microsurgery.

  1. OCT images
  2. Boundary estimation
  3. Temporal tracking
Related paper · IEEE TBME 2026 Related paper · SPIE 2025
Technical focus

Connecting frame-by-frame boundary predictions with recursive state estimation to investigate corneal tracking for robotic surgical guidance.

Computational optical imaging

Computational OCT & optical modeling

Corneal OCT signals reflect both tissue structure and light transport. I connect scattering and attenuation models with Monte Carlo simulations (MCML) to generate synthetic OCT data and investigate learning-based estimation of tissue optical properties.

  1. Light transport
  2. Synthetic OCT
  3. Inverse estimation
Technical focus

Linking forward models of light propagation with deep-learning inverse models, using synthetic imaging data to study the relationship between OCT measurements and tissue optical properties.

AI-assisted medical image analysis

AI-assisted biomedical image analysis

I investigate U-Net-based segmentation of sweat gland and sweat droplet images to support quantitative analysis of biomedical structures. This work connects learned image interpretation with measurements derived from segmented images.

  1. Biomedical images
  2. U-Net segmentation
  3. Quantitative analysis
Technical focus

Delineating structures in biomedical images and studying how segmentation outputs can support quantitative analysis across different imaging contexts.

Selected publications

OCT, medical robotics & signal processing

Featured journal article

Featured conference proceedings

Journal article

Conference paper

Background

Education

  1. Johns Hopkins University

    Aug 2025 — present

    Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering In progress

    Advisor: Professor Jin U. Kang · iOIV / Kang Lab

  2. Johns Hopkins University

    M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering

  3. University of Cincinnati

    B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

  4. Chongqing University

    B.E. in Mechanical Engineering

Earlier research & teaching

  • University of Alberta 2022

    Mitacs Globalink Research Internship with Professor Hossein Rouhani. Soft-bodied robotics for upper-limb motion assessment and rehabilitation.

  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University 2021

    Research assistant with Professor Lixu Gu, Institute of Medical Robotics and School of Biomedical Engineering. Percutaneous lung intervention robotics.

  • UC–CQU Joint Co-op Institute 2022

    Teaching assistant in kinematics, system dynamics and vibrations, and solid mechanics.

Contact

Let’s connect.

For conversations about biomedical imaging,
medical AI, and image-guided robotics.

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Johns Hopkins University · Baltimore, Maryland