Alumni Spotlight – Rongzhong Li

Dr. Rongzhong Li earned his PhD from the Wake Forest Department of Physics in 2015 under the mentorship of Professor Sam Cho, and a Masters degree from the Wake Forest Department of Computer Science in 2016 under the mentorship of Professor Paul Pauca. Now he is Founder and CEO of Petoi LLC, a company which designs and manufactures robotic pets.

The robotic pets produced by Petoi are open source, which means that their code is freely accessible and can be modified by the user. This makes the pets a valuable tool for education, inspiring kids and adults to delve into the code which makes these robots work. The quadruped robots come in cat or dog form, and can also serve as personal companions to improve human well being.

Dr. Li comments that an education in physics was helpful to his career and the creation of his company, stating the following in an interview with Professor Jed Macosko:

Physics definitely helped my career as the founder of Petoi, a quadruped robot pet company. It’s the foundation of our product’s theory and hardware to build a complex system for quadruped walking robots in the compact form of little dogs and cats. The methods that physics converts reality into mathematical models not only helped me understand the world but also inspired me to invent new STEM products for research, education, and entertainment.

Rongzhong Li, Founder and CEO of Petoi