Speakers

Bio: Dr. Laura Blumenschein is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Laura received a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University under Marcia O’Malley and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 2019 under the supervision of Professor Allison Okamura. Their research focuses on creating more robust and adaptable soft robots: this includes soft robots inspired by plants and soft haptic devices which allow for more seamless human-robot interaction. Laura has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a 35 Under 35 Innovator and received an NSF graduate research fellowship. Their work on plant-inspired growing robots has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, Wired, and on CBS’s Innovation Nation.

Title: Soft Robot Design as Planning and Control: Leveraging Parallel Simulation to Create Contact-Aware Behaviors

Bio: Daniel Bruder is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Prior to this appointment, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2020 and a B.S. degree in engineering sciences from Harvard University in 2013. He is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Richard and Eleanor Towner Prize for Outstanding Ph.D. Research. His research interests include the design, modeling, and control of robotic systems, especially soft robots.

Title: Leveraging data, physical models, and the Koopman operator to make soft robots more capable

Bio: Cosimo Della Santina holds a BSc in Computer Engineering and a MSc in Robotics and Control Theory from the University of Pisa. He was a Ph.D. student at the University of Pisa and IIT, a visiting researcher and postdoc at MIT-CSAIL, and a senior postdoc and later a lecturer at TUM. He is now Associate Professor at TU Delft (CoR, Mechanical Engineering), and a researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Title: Breaking the softness vs performance trade-off in soft robotics with good old model based control.

Bio: Egidio Falotico received the dual Ph.D. degree in innovative technologies from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy, and in cognitive science from Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris, France, in 2013, and the M.Sc. degree in computer science from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2008. He is currently an associate professor with the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. He has been and is Principal Investigator (PI) of European and national research projects, and actively contributes to international research initiatives in robotics and neurorobotics. His research focuses on brain-inspired robotics, combining principles from neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and motor control to develop learning-based and adaptive control strategies for rigid and soft robotic systems.

Title: Advancing Soft Robots with AI: Enabling Dynamic Tasks and Human–Robot Interaction

Bio: Sajjad Hussain is Research Assistant at PRISMA Lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at University of Naples Federico II. He received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan (2018). He received the Ph.D. degree in Information Technology and Communication Technology for Health from University of Naples Federico II (2025). His research focuses on soft robotics, surgical robotics, miniaturized robots.

Title: A Physics-Based Surgical Simulator as a Predictive Model for Soft-Tissue Manipulation Control

Bio: Ervin Kamenar is an Associate Professor at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Engineering, where he lectures in mechatronics and robotics. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rijeka. He initiated and led the development of the Mechatronics and Robotics study program (2024) and currently serves as its Director. His research focuses on mechatronics, soft robotics, precision engineering, and Koopman-operator-based modeling and control. Ervin also serves as a consultant for AIMdyn Inc. (USA) on generative AI, dynamical systems, and Koopman-operator-based modeling and analysis. He has undertaken multiple visiting research appointments at the University of California, Santa Barbara, including a Fulbright Visiting Professorship. Recently, he was awarded a Croatian Science Foundation project, “Advanced soft robots: data-driven development, modeling and control,” which explores the application of soft robotics and Koopman-based methodologies in robotic rehabilitation systems.

Title: From Koopman Soft Robot Control to EMG-Informed Rehabilitation Devices

Bio: Robert Katzschmann is an Assistant Professor of Robotics at ETH Zurich and the founder of the Soft Robotics Lab, where he develops new robotic morphologies for a future of life-like robots that seamlessly integrate with us. Robert is also the cofounder and scientific advisor of mimic robotics, which develops autonomous dexterous manipulation solutions.  He holds a Diplom-Ingenieur from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), wrote his master thesis at Stanford University (2013), and earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) in 2018.

Title: Control Principles for Musculoskeletal and Biohybrid Robots

Bio: Amirhossein Kazemipour is a PhD researcher in the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, where he works on the design, modeling, and control of musculoskeletal robotic systems. His research brings together electrohydraulic artificial muscles, compliant actuation, high-voltage electronics, mechatronic integration, and data-driven control to develop agile and adaptive robotic systems for locomotion and manipulation. With a cross-disciplinary background in robotics, control engineering, and aerospace systems, he develops end-to-end robotic platforms that combine new actuator concepts with real-time control strategies. He is a recipient of the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship.

Title: Control Principles for Musculoskeletal and Biohybrid Robots

Bio: Marc Killpack completed his Ph.D. in Robotics from the Georgia Institute of Technology and joined BYU as an Assistant Professor in December of 2013. His areas of expertise include soft robotics, human-robot interaction, controls, mechanics and perception for robotics and other automated systems. His current research interests relate to improving modeling and control for robot manipulation in unstructured and difficult environments. This includes applications related to search and rescue, disaster response and human robot interaction. While at Georgia Tech in the Healthcare Robotics Lab (HRL), Marc worked on projects including sensing and control for mobile robot bases, automating learning from robot grasping, manipulation around and interacting with human subjects, and control of a robot arm in cluttered and unmodeled environments. Prior to joining HRL, he completed Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering from both Georgia Tech and AM Paris Tech (formerly ENSAM) in Metz, France. In 2007, Marc graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

Title: Enabling Dynamic and High-Force Tasks with Soft Robotics and Control

Bio: Girish Krishnan is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also a Health Innovation Professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and a co-director for the Hoeft Technology and Management program. He obtained his PhD from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and masters from the Indian Institute of Science. His research is in the intersection of design and robotics, and particularly in soft robotics with applications in agriculture and healthcare. Prof. Krishnan is the recipient of the 2015 NSF Early Career award (CAREER), 2016 UIUC council award for excellence in advising, 2017 Freudestein Young Investigator award (ASME) and several best paper awards. He has published around 40 peer-reviewed journals, 50 conference proceedings, and holds four patents. 

Title: Soft robot autonomy for horticulture

Bio: Margaret (Coad) McGuinness joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 2021, and she is currently an Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. She leads the Innovative Robotics and Interactive Systems (IRIS) Lab, which explores the design, modeling, and control of innovative robotic systems to improve human health, safety, and productivity; she also teaches courses in robotics and soft robotics. Prior to joining Notre Dame, she completed her Ph.D. degree in 2021 and M.S. degree in 2017 in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, and her B.S. degree in 2015 in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. She won the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine Best Paper Award in 2021 and the Toyota Programmable System Innovation Fellowship Award in 2023 for her work on vine robots. She also won the University of Notre Dame College of Engineering Outstanding Research Mentoring Award in 2025. Outside of academics, she plays ultimate frisbee and sings in choir.

Title: Sensing and Control of Soft Growing "Vine" Robots for Urban Search and Rescue

Bio: Prof. C.A. Monje has been working in robotics and control for over 20 years. Her work on soft robotics and systems control is internationally recognized. She has actively collaborated with research centers in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Singapore. As the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Soft Robotics Laboratory of the UC3M RoboticsLab, with a strong expertise in soft robots prototyping, modeling and control, she has been PI of numerous research projects and has published 200+ papers on robotics and control, with h-index 31 and 8600+ cites. 

Some awards and recognitions: Member of the Jury of the “Princesa de Asturias” Award (2020-2023, 2025); “Talento Emergente” Award – Cyberlideria (2025); “Women Space” Award (2024); “TALGO Excelencia Profesional de la Mujer en Ingeniería” Award (finalist) (2022, 2023, 2024); “Top 100  Mujeres Líderes en España, Categoría Investigadoras” Award (2021); “Gigante Extremeño” Award (2019); “Ada Byron a la Mujer Tecnóloga de la Universidad de Deusto” Award (2019); “Excelencia Investigadora de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid” Award (2018); “Mujer y Tecnología de la Fundación Orange” Award (2018); “Mejor Científica Contemporánea – QUO-CSIC” Award (2017); European Doctorate Distinction and Doctorate Extraordinary Award (2006).

Title: Simplicity in the design and control of soft robots

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Kirstin H. Petersen is an Associate Professor and Aref and Manon Lahham Faculty Fellow in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. Her research focuses on collective embodied intelligence, with an emphasis on developing distributed control strategies for robot swarms inspired by natural systems.

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Entangled Robot Matter

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Kenji Tahara received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1998), M.S. in Information Science and Systems (2000), and Ph.D. in Robotics (2003) from Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He served as a Research Scientist at the Bio-Mimetic Control Research Center, RIKEN (2003–2007), before joining Kyushu University in 2007 as a tenure-track Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He became a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2011 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2020. He was a Visiting Professor at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA), EPFL (2013–2014), and at the Manufacturing and Automation Laboratory (MAL), Stony Brook University (2017). His research interests include robotic manipulation, multi-fingered hands, force control, and soft robotics.

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Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation by a Pair of Robotic Fingers Combining Soft and Rigid Parts

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