Hannah Stuart
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Don M. Cunningham Endowed Professorship in Mechanical Engineering
Email: hstuart@berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 643-9786
Office: 5138 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1740
Hannah Stuart received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the George Washington University in 2011. She then completed her MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2013 and 2018 respectively. She is an NSF CAREER and NASA Early Career Faculty grant recipient.
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Research Description:
Professor Stuart’s research interests include: Dexterous manipulation; Bioinspired design; Soft and multi-material mechanisms; Skin contact conditions; Tactile sensing and haptics.
Mobile and assistive robots face a rapidly expanding range of potential applications, including remote exploration and human assistance. In many of these cases, the focus of interaction is via the robot’s contact points, like end-effectors. However, current machines have limited capabilities in comparison to their biological counterparts when complex contact conditions dominate physical interaction.
Professor Stuart’s research group is interested in improving robot dexterity with embodied intelligence through studying and designing for the nonidealities of real contact, especially for unstructured environments. This includes the design of (1) novel grippers and hands, (2) touch perception for autonomous interventions and (3) bioinspired manipulation strategies. This vision includes the advancement of relevant design analysis tools and the validation of concepts by applying technologies in the field.
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