Professor Dai is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng, The UK’s National Academy of Engineering), and a member of Academia Europaea (MAE, The Academy of Europe). He is an IEEE Fellow, ASME Fellow, IMechE Fellow and RSA Fellow. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the long-standing international journal Robotica and a Subject Editor of Mechanism and Machine Theory. 

A pioneering figure in reconfigurable mechanisms and robots, origami robots, ankle rehabilitation robots, and metamorphic robots, he was the 27th recipient of the 2015 ASME DED Mechanisms and Robotics Award since its inception in 1974, the 58th recipient of the 2020 ASME Machine Design Award since its inception in 1958, the 15th recipient of the 2023 IFToMM Award of Merits since its inception in 2003. He also receive many awards including the AT Yang Award in Theoretical Kinematics in 2019, the Crossley Award in 2018, and the 2010 King’s College London Overall Supervisory Excellence Award.

Published over 700 peer-reviewed papers, and 9 authored books, with Google scholar h-index of 72, Prof Dai has graduated over 50 PhD students who are currently either faculty members of world-leading universities, affiliated with prestigious corporations, or successful entrepreneurs.