About Me
I am a PhD candidate (graduating Spring 2027) in the Sung Robotics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. I am interested in intersections of computational geometry, robot design, motion planning, human-computer interaction, and STEM education. In particular, I aim to advance computational tools for robot design that empower a broad audience to create their own robots and support engineers in rapidly creating custom robots to meet new needs. My long-term research questions include:
- What geometric representations best enable algorithms and humans to find mechanism designs and motion plans for robots?
- How do non-experts (especially students) using 3D design software form self-efficacy and identity with design and engineering?
My thesis research examines these questions in the context of designing kinematic linkages for robots. Representing link shapes as bent tubes allows us to apply path planning techniques to create design algorithms and interactive design tools. We are also piloting this interactive software in a high school curriculum about robot design, studying how feelings of design agency mediate STEM identity formation.
Other projects with related themes include:
- Motion planning with provable guarantees from simple movement abstractions for modular cubes that reconfigure by pivoting and for planar robots with touch-only sensing and unreliable heading.
- Minimally-actuated multicapable design of an origami quadruped (CurveQuad) that uses just a single servomotor for steerable crawling and self-folding deployment.
- An educational robot kit (the Artistic Non-Inertial Tracer (ANT)) highlighting bidirectional relationships between art and engineering through origami-inspired robot design and visual tracing of undulating gaits.
I am proud to mentor FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 9416, the International Θperatives of World Affairs (I.Θ.W.A) from Bodine High School in Philadelphia.