Presenter

Yiyang Shang is a PhD student in Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Digital Media department, where he conducts research in the RePlay Lab under Dr. Paul Diefenbach. His work centers on adaptive digital media and telerehabilitation, with a current focus on stroke rehabilitation through the RehabCARES/enAbleGames platform, an active video game system designed for post-stroke upper-limb therapy. As a research assistant on the project, he developed the dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) subsystem and the physiological monitoring pipeline, integrating real-time biometric signals into adaptive gameplay, and is currently building a virtual assistant component to support remote clinical engagement and patient guidance outside the clinic. His DDA work was published at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR) as "General Purpose Haptic/Biometric-Based Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment for Post-Stroke Upper-Limb Rehabilitation Games." His motion-based input framework, SUKI+, was published in the companion proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (I3D), and enables real-time movement control remapping for users with diverse physical abilities without modifying game code. The platform is developed in partnership with Penn Medicine and Penn Engineering, bridging active video game design with evidence-based rehabilitation practice. Prior to Drexel, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut. His broader research interests span adaptive game systems, biometric-driven interaction, accessible gaming, and the use of AI agents in clinical and rehabilitative contexts.