Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Bio: 

Title: TBA

12:15pm - 1:15pm | Klaus 1116 E&W

Abstract: TBA

Bio: Jeremy D. Brown, the John C. Malone Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, explores the interface between humans and robotics, with a specific focus on medical applications and haptic feedback.

Brown’s research sits at the intersection of engineering, biomechatronics, medicine, perception, and psychophysics, and focuses on the interface between humans and robotics. He develops novel haptic interfaces for upper-limb prostheses, minimally invasive surgical robotics, and rehabilitation robots.

Brown’s team in his Haptics and Medical Robotics (HAMR) lab uses methods from human perception, motor control, neurophysiology, and biomechanics to study the human perception of touch, especially as it relates to applications of human-robot interaction and collaboration. Elements of HAMR’s research could lead to breakthroughs in additional fields, including rehabilitation robotics.

Abstract:  Recent generalist robot systems rely on vision-language-action models without making any use of perception capabilities like 3D or 4D representations encoded in vision foundation models. They increasingly rely on scaling up the number of examples needed for behavior cloning not only to capture the distribution of tasks but also basic perceptual skills. We argue that a robot should be an active observer that selects the best views required for scene representation and the affordances involved in the task at hand. Such an exploration can rely on information-theoretic principles that guide the robot towards unpredictable views. Moreover, test-time geometric reasoning can adapt to arbitrary environments enabling collision-free planning and one-shot adaptation. Last, symmetry enables better generalization and learning dynamics. We propose an equivariant canonicalization framework with applications in trajectory planning and odometry.

Bio: Kostas’ research interests are in computer vision and robotic perception. His research addresses challenges in the perception of motion and space, such as the geometric design of cameras, and the interplay of geometry and appearance in perception tasks. Kostas’s research gives solutions to perceptual tasks such as panoramic vision, localization, perception of self-motion, large-scale mapping, visual location recognition, 3-D object recognition, and vision-based flocking. Applications of his research involve robot navigation, tele-immersion, and image and shape retrieval.

Abstract: Over the past twenty-five years, my research journey has traversed the full spectrum of robotics, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of Mars, and from autonomous machines to human-centered systems. This talk will reflect on a career dedicated to advancing robotics across vastly different environments, unified by one central theme: understanding and controlling complex, uncertain, and dynamic systems.

Beginning with underwater vehicles and distributed control for multi-agent coordination, the talk will trace the evolution of my work through ground and aerial robotics, where nonlinear and robust control methods were developed to enable agility, adaptability, and resilience. The discussion will then move into human-centered robotics, including humanoid platforms, rehabilitation robotics, and powered exoskeletons designed to restore or augment human movement. These efforts have increasingly blurred the boundaries between machine and human, culminating in recent work on physical human-machine interaction and assistive technologies that embody both engineering rigor and social impact.

Drawing from experiences in academia, government, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the presentation will offer an integrated perspective on how robotic systems can enhance human capability, extend our reach into extreme environments, and inspire the next generation of engineers and explorers.

Bio: Dr. Alexander Leonessa is the Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University, where he also holds the D.W. Reynolds Distinguished Professorship. His career spans more than twenty-five years of research, teaching, and leadership in robotics, control systems, and human–machine interaction.

Before joining Clemson, Dr. Leonessa served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, where he led the Mind, Machine, Motor Nexus (M3X) program and oversaw the Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) and the Dynamic, Control and Systems Diagnostics (DCSD) programs. In that role, he managed a research portfolio of approximately $10 million, advancing national efforts in robotics, assistive technologies, and neuroengineering.

Abstract: This lecture presents a research vision for Behavioral Production, an emerging paradigm at the intersection of design, engineering, and autonomous systems. In response to housing insecurity, labor shortages, and the environmental impacts of conventional construction, the work reframes building production as a responsive, adaptive, and materially intelligent process grounded in semi-autonomous fabrication, multi-agent coordination strategies, robotic platforms and tools, and generative computational design. Drawing on aerial and ground-based collective robotic construction and multi-agent design strategies informed by deep learning, the lecture outlines pathways toward scalable and affordable building systems that address urgent societal needs.

Bio: Robert Stuart-Smith is Founding Director of the Master of Science in Design: Robotics and Autonomous Systems (MSD-RAS) program, Assistant Professor of Architecture, and an affiliate faculty member in the Engineering School’s GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He is also a Principal Research Associate in University College London’s (UCL) Department of Computer Science. Stuart-Smith leads the Autonomous Manufacturing Lab across Penn and UCL, where he has secured over $6.9M in competitive research funding and collaborates with industry partners including Cemex, Skanska, Mace, Buro Happold, Arup, and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC). Stuart-Smith’s research focuses on robotics-enabled fabrication and construction systems, adaptive multi-robot processes, and integrated AI-driven generative design workflows. His Aerial Additive Manufacturing research —published in Nature—introduced in-flight additive manufacturing using coordinated aerial robotic agents. Stuart-Smith’s work has also been published in Science Robotics, AD Architectural Design, and L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and featured by outlets including BBC Click, New Scientist, Smithsonian, and Architizer.

Abstract: The vision of robotic materials—cohesive collectives of robotic units that can arrange into virtually any form with any physical properties—has long intrigued both science and fiction. Yet this vision requires a fundamental physical challenge to be overcome: The collective must be strong, to support loads, yet flow, to take new forms.

In this talk, I will describe how we achieve this in a material-like robotic collective by modulating the interunit tangential forces to control topological rearrangements of units within a tightly packed structure. This allows local control of rigidity transitions between solid and fluid-like states in the collective and enables spatiotemporal control of shape and strength. I will show examples of structure-forming and healing and how the collective can support 700 newtons (500 times the weight of a robot) before“melting” under its own weight.

Bio:  Elliot W. Hawkes is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where he also earned his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Previously, he worked at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab and the ETH Multi-scale Robotics Lab. The Hawkes Lab's research is at the intersection of design, mechanics, and materials, and develops novel mechanisms and applies non-traditional materials to solve challenging problems in robotics, medicine, and biomechanics. He has spun two companies out of the Hawkes Lab, to bring new medical and rehabilitation devices into the world.

Abstract: The last five years have seen the transition of the perception of humanoid robots as almost exclusively a research platform to a viable commercial platform. The believed wide applicability of these platforms stems from their huge potential capabilities. With form factors inspired by humans, the hope is that these robots may one day be as capable as their biological counterparts. One of their areas of greatest potential impact are in highly uncertain, highly variable settings like disaster response. However, what goes into making this possible?

This talk will be broken into two parts. First, we will talk about the hardware design of humanoid robots, in particular the design of IHMC's custom humanoids, Nadia and Alex. These systems are highly articulated and thus highly complex, with many degrees of freedom and many subsystems. Beyond complexity, however, enabling them to move through environments dynamically and efficiently requires careful consideration of not only their actuator design but also the passive dynamics. Then, we will talk about IHMC's work in the design of autonomy and human interfaces to enable humans to team with humanoid robots to explore and work in novel environments. This will overview the approach for one of the earliest uses of virtual reality to control humanoid robots.  We will also highlight IHMC's design of a flexible autonomy architecture built on behavior trees that enables on-the-fly drafting of novel behaviors and reliable reactivity, including the inclusion of human intervention when encountered with uncertainty.

Bio: Dr. Robert Griffin is a Senior Research Scientist at IHMC and Director of Research Professor at the University of West Florida. His research focuses on improving mobility and autonomy for legged robotics and powered exoskeletons. He is interested in system level approaches for improving the mobility and capability of these robotic platforms, including platform design, motion design and control, autonomy and manipulation, and perception. 

Dr. Griffin leads the robotics group at IHMC, directing a number of projects focusing on advancing robotics. This has included the Office of Naval Research's SquadBot program, which has led to the development of the Alex and Nadia humanoid robots. He has also led the algorithm development for NASA Johnson Space Center's Valkyrie project, including using Valkyrie as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician. Dr. Griffin has also guided the development of a number of exoskeleton systems, including devices used for regaining mobility as well as worker assistance for the Department of Energy. The research in these projects has included the development of novel simplified models for locomotion, contact planning, environmental modeling, the development of autonomy algorithms, and hardware design. His work has resulted in a number of recognitions, including several best paper awards, qualifying as a finalist in the Toyota Mobility Foundation's Mobility Unlimited Challenge, a 2nd and 4th place finish in the Cybathlon Powered Exoskeleton race, and being named as the Outstanding Research Organization in the 2025 Humanoid Robotics Industry Awards. 

Abstract: The ability to manufacture microscale sensors and other components for robotic systems has intrigued the robotics community for almost 40 years. There have been huge success stories; MEMS inertial sensors have enabled an entire market of low-cost, small-scale UAVs. However, the promise of ant-scale robots has largely failed. Ants and other small insects like mites can move at high speeds on surfaces from picnic tables to front lawns, but few small-scale robots have moved outside the lab. This talk will present themes across our work in scaling down robotics. A common thread across our work is the use of geometry, materials, and mechanisms to do part of the robot control and computation in hardware. For example, choosing the right foot geometry and size scale can result in a 3.6 cm high power autonomous biped capable of high speed locomotion at 25 cm/s. Novel fabrication processes can be designed to tightly couple high-bandwidth actuators, sensors, and mechanisms for locomotion and manipulation tasks. Finally, even sensors can be designed to quickly and easily detect flight-relevant events. 

Bio: Sarah Bergbreiter joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University as a Professor in the fall of 2018 after spending ten years at the University of Maryland, College Park. She started her academic career with a B.S.E. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1999. After a short introduction to the challenges of sensor networks at a small startup company, she received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2007 with a focus on small-scale robots. Prof. Bergbreiter received the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2008, the NSF CAREER Award in 2011, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2013 for her research on engineering robotic systems down to millimeter size scales. She has received several Best Paper awards at conferences like ICRA, IROS, and Hilton Head Workshop with her fabulous group of students and former students, and is a Fellow of the ASME. She also served as Vice Chair of DARPA’s Microsystems Exploratory Council from 2020 through 2022. Outside of academia, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, running, biking, or skiing outside rather slowly, and the rare game of water polo.

Abstract: Neural interface technologies provide new opportunities to assist and augment human behaviors. For instance, muscle activity can be transformed into commands for an assistive device for people with disabilities or provide richer control for a computer than interfaces like mice and keyboards. Connecting signals from the nervous system to an external device in this way presents users with a new, potentially unintuitive, mapping between their movements and those of the device. Users often change their behavior as they learn to control neural interfaces, and many neural interfaces leverage machine learning to let the device adapt to the users. This co-learning creates complex and high-throughput interactions between algorithms and the nervous system. In my talk, I’ll present recent research in my lab demonstrating that the algorithms we use in neural interfaces influence neural computations and user learning. I will then present new computational frameworks we’ve developed to predict and shape user-algorithm interactions. These discoveries open possibilities to build neural interfaces that intelligently interact with the nervous system to assist and rehabilitate motor function across diverse users and applications.

Bio: Dr. Orsborn is a Cherng Jia and Elizabeth Yun Hwang Associate Professor in the departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Washington. Her research explores sensorimotor plasticity in brain-computer interfaces and how plasticity is influenced by the algorithms used. She completed her Ph.D. at the UC Berkeley/UCSF Joint Graduate Program in Bioengineering and her postdoctoral training at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. She recently received the NSF CAREER award, a Sloan Fellowship, and was named an Emerging Leader by the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.