With deep sadness, we mourn the passing of Dr. YangQuan Chen, Professor in the School of Engineering at UC Merced and founder and director of the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab. A respected scholar, educator, mentor, and innovator, Dr. Chen helped shape UC Merced’s engineering programs and advanced the fields of control systems and mechatronics.
Dr. Chen joined the faculty of UC Merced in 2012 from Utah State University, where he directed the Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems. From the outset, he played a key role in building UC Merced’s engineering research and academic programs, contributing to the campus’s growing reputation for excellence and innovation. As founder of the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab, he developed a multidisciplinary, hands-on research environment focused on unmanned aerial systems, UAV-based remote sensing, cyber-physical systems, modeling and control of renewable energy systems, mechatronics, and applied fractional calculus.
Dr. Chen was an engaged and valued member of the CITRIS community. A 2016 Seed Funding recipient, he served on the CITRIS faculty advisory committee at UCM, contributed to the CITRIS Aviation Working Group and mentored UC Merced student teams participating in the CITRIS Aviation Prize. He also shared his expertise through the CITRIS Research Exchange and other public programs, helping to connect research, education and real-world application across the institute’s four campuses.
A dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Chen supported generations of students across undergraduate and graduate programs. He was known for his generosity, intellectual curiosity and commitment to helping students grow as engineers and as individuals, engaging them in the design and development of real-world technologies.
Dr. Chen earned his B.S. in industrial automation from the University of Science and Technology of Beijing, his M.S. in automatic control from the Beijing Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in advanced control and instrumentation from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His career reflected a global perspective and a lifelong commitment to advancing knowledge.
Dr. Chen’s legacy will endure through the programs he helped build, the research he advanced and the many students and colleagues he inspired. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, students and colleagues, as well as the UC Merced community, during this difficult time.
A memorial will be held on May 17, 2026. The family welcomes photographs and short written memories in advance; more information is available at https://in-memory-of-prof-yangquan-chen.com/