Gravish lab

(PI) Nick Gravish

Associate Professor

ngravish@ucsd.edu

CV:
WEB:

I am interested in movement dynamics in biology and robotics. I am driven by developing new methods for analysis and generation of locomotion using tools from robotics, computer vision, and physics.

Education

Postdoctoral scholar at Harvard University (2013 - 2016)
- School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
- Advisers: Robert J. Wood and Stacey A. Combes
Ph.D. in Physics at Georgia Tech (2008 - 2013)
- Thesis: Collective dynamics of active and passive granular media
- Minor: Mechanics of materials
- Adviser: Daniel I. Goldman
B.S. in Physics at UC Santa Barbara (2001 - 2005)
- Undergraduate Research Honors, 2004 & 2005

Post-doc

Dongting Li

dongtingli@ucsd.edu

Dongting is a joint post-doc with the Tolley lab developing soft robots for exploration in granular environments.

PhD

Shivani Deglurkar

shivanideglurkar@ucsd.edu

Ruiqi Wang

ruw072@ucsd.edu

Rundong Yang

r7yang@ucsd.edu

Subin Chae

suchae@ucsd.edu

Yakun Cao

yac003@ucsd.edu

Masters

Hangjun Liu

hal152@ucsd.edu

Hangjun Liu

hal152@ucsd.edu

Aidy Huang

zhh049@ucsd.edu

Gengzhi He

gehe@ucsd.edu

Former lab members

Glenna Clifton

(Post-doc)

Currently: Assistant Professor University of Portland
Website:

Glenna worked in the lab for three years studying legged locomotion of ants on complex, three-dimensional terrain.

Curtis Sparks

(PhD)

Thesis: Buckled Tape Spring Mechanisms, Curvature Based Actuation

Curtis studied how to design tape-spring based mechanisms for robotic appengages, including legs and fingers.

Emily Lathrop

(PhD)

Thesis: Enhanced Robot-Environment Interfaces to Improve Locomotion on Natural Terrain
Thesis link:
Currently: Emily is currently an engineering consultant at the Rand Corporation

Emily was co-advised by Prof. Tolley. She worked on developing new soft-robotic technologies for robot mobility on granular and real-world substrates.

James Lynch

(PhD)

Thesis: A robophysical investigation of series-elastic flapping wings
Thesis link:
Currently: James is currently an engineering consultant at Exponent

James studied the interaction between aerodynamic forces and compliant actuators in a dynamically scaled flapping wing robot.

Wei Zhou

(PhD)

Thesis: Design of oscillatory movement for ground-based locomotion and synchronized movement in bioinspired robotics
Thesis link:
Currently: Wei is currently an engineer at Cisco systems

Wei’s PhD work focused on how to design ground based robots that move through body oscillation, and that can interact through contact to create collective movements.

Shivam Chopra

(PhD)

Thesis: Robot locomotion in granular environments via passive compliance and underactuation
Thesis link:
Currently: Shivam is currently an engineer at ATI industrial

Shivam’s PhD work focused on design principles for robot movement within granular media.

Mingsong Jiang

(PhD)

Thesis: Towards Reconfigurable and Adaptive Soft Robots via Hybrid Materials, Designs and Mechanisms
Thesis link:
Currently: Mingsong is currently a post-doc at Yale

Mingsong Jiang developed new laminate and soft technologies for bio-inspired robots.

Ignatius Widjaja

(Masters)

Thesis: A Jagged Anisotropic Mechanically Jamming Appendage for Locomotion
Currently: Aerospace Engineer at Northrop Grumman

Jordan Banh

(Masters)

Thesis: Design and fabrication of locomotive robot driven by prismatic pouch actuators that generate multi-directional motion
Thesis link:
Currently: Aerospace engineer at Northrop Grumman

David Zhu

(Masters)

Thesis: A Study on the Dynamic Effects of Active Pitch Control in an Flapping Wing Robot with Elastic Element
Thesis link:
Currently: Cymer corporation

Edward Lan

(Masters)

Thesis: Design of an Insect-Scale Flapping-Wing Robot with Concomitant Piezoelectric Velocity Sensing for Flight
Thesis link:
Currently: Cymer corporation

Hang Gao

(Masters)

Thesis: A compliant thorax design for robustness and elastic energy exchange in flapping-wing robots
Thesis link:
Currently: PhD student at Cornell

Shuhang Zhang

(Masters)

Thesis: A Monolithic Fabrication of Pouch Actuated Soft Robots
Thesis link:
Currently: PhD student EPFL

Yudong Wei

(Masters)

Thesis: Synchronization through Manipulation - Indirectly Coupled Oscillating Walking Robots
Thesis link:

Zhe Yong

(Masters)

Thesis: The characteristics and application of oscillator based robots with spring connection
Thesis link:

Zhuonan Hao

(Masters)

Thesis: Design principles for locomotion synchronization in undulatory robot groups
Thesis link:
Currently: PhD student UCLA

Garam Kim

(Masters)

Thesis: An Application of The Flexostructure: Multifunctional Robot Using Flexostructured Appendages
Thesis link:

Chinmay Shah

(Masters)

Thesis: Learning to walk on rough terrain and collision localization for legged robots with Machine Learning
Thesis link:
Currently: Engineer at Path Robotics

Henry Chang

(Masters)

Thesis: Virtual leg compliance improves swing-phase collision response when walking on uneven ground
Thesis link:
Currently: PhD student at U Washington

Sayan Mondal

(Masters)

Thesis: Design and analysis of a kirigami-based two-finger micro-gripper
Thesis link:
Currently: Masters student CMU

Bowen Zhang

(Masters)

Thesis: Automated Three-Dimensional Body Orientation Reconstruction And Motion Tracking With Two Views During Avoidance Maneuver of Bumblebee
Thesis link:

Mengxi Ren

(Masters)

Thesis: A Voice Coil Based Vibration Platform for Micro Robots Application
Thesis link:
Currently: Engineer Wavemaker labs

Amartya Bhattacharyya

(Masters)

Thesis: Locomotion performance of hexapod robots on rough substrates and the influence of leg compliance
Thesis link:

Axel Qin

(Masters)

Thesis: A three-axis force platform design for cockroach incline climbing analysis
Thesis link:

Rahul Shurpurkar

(Masters)

Thesis: Study of Hexapod Locomotion over Uniformly Structured Terrain
Thesis link:

Yash Jawanjal

(Masters)

Thesis: Angular displacement sensing and joint position localization using stretchable fiber-optic sensors in soft flexo-structures
Thesis link:

Daniel Ortiz

(Masters)

Thesis: Soft Robot Actuation Strategies for Locomotion in Granular Substrates
Thesis link:
Currently: Engineer at Cymer

Amio Das

(Undergraduate)

Caitlin Le

(Undergraduate)

Currently: PhD program at Yale

Caitrin Duffy-Deno

(Undergraduate)

Currently: Structural Aerospace Engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center

Drago Vasile

(Undergraduate)

Eugene Lin

(Undergraduate)

Currently: PhD student at Johns Hopkins

Jaquelin Dezha-Peralta

(Undergraduate)

Currently: Research technician Harvard Medical School

Jiansong Wang

(Undergraduate)

Currently: Masters program at Carnegie Mellon

Justin Chang

(Undergraduate)

Currently: Technician Scripps Institute underwater robotics

Matt Mcdaniel

(Undergraduate)

Currently: Engineer at ASML

Qifan Yu

(Undergraduate)

Currently: PhD program at MIT

Rouyu Sun

(Undergraduate)

Currently: PhD Student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Siming Deng

(Undergraduate)

Currently: PhD student at Johns Hopkins

Jhonathan Bituin

(Undergraduate)

Jeremy Lu

(High-school)

Dennis Wu

(Lab tech)

Currently: Engineer at Nanocore