Lab News

• August 2022
  • Cara Nunez organized a workshop at BioRob 2022 on Upper-Limb Assistive Device Design, Sensing, Control, and Clinical Practice.
• May 2022
  • Dr. Buse Aktas and Dr. Robert Howe at the Harvard 2022 Commencement. Congratulations Buse!
  • We organized a tutorial at ICRA 2022 on Jamming in Robotics .
• April 2022
  • Welcome to our new post doc Letizia Gionfrida!
• December 2021
  • We visited Buse Aktas's exhibition "How's the Matter?" at the ArtLab.
• November 2021
  • Congratulations Dr. Buse Aktas for successfully defending her dissertation!
• October 2021
  • Welcome to new lab members Cara Nunez and Soumyajyoti Maji!
• August 2021
  • Welcome to new lab members Rima Rebei and Edgar Guzman!
• March 2021
  • Lab Alumnus, Dr. Alperen Degirmenci visited lab and presented on his current work in autonomous driving.
  • Professor Howe was a speaker at the CPAR Seminar Series.
• November 2020
  • Our lab has relocated to the new Science and Engineering Complex in Allston.
  • Buse Aktas gave a guest lecture at Princeton University's Extraordinary Processes Course.
• May 2020
  • Richard Nuckols presented a paper at ICRA 2020.
  • Congratulations to Gunnar Allison, Simone Braunstein, Robert Collins and Ian Webb for completing their senior design projects!
• April 2020
  • Buse Aktas presented a paper at RoboSoft 2020.
• February 2020
  • Professor Howe was awarded an honorary doctorate by Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He also delivered a graduation speech at the graduation ceremonies.
• January 2020
  • Lab Alumnus Chris Wagner visited lab! See Photo
• November 2019
  • Pierre-Frederic Villard and Daryna Panicheva from the CURATIVE Research Group in Inria are visiting.
  • Buse Aktas presented a paper at IROS 2019.
• October 2019
  • Professor Howe gave a keynote talk on robotic hands and grasping at the Worcester Polytechnic Insitute
• May 2019
  • Dr. Qian Wan and Dr. Yashraj Narang were back on campus for graduation!
  • We were at ICRA 2019. Professor Howe presented a paper, Dr. Richard Nuckols and Buse Aktas presented posters in workshops.
  • Congratulations Dr. Qian Wan for successfully defending her dissertation! See Photo
  • Jung Hur was awarded the Hoopes Prize for her senior thesis entitled "Adjustable Stiffness Splint through Laminar Jamming for Treatment of Open Fracture Wounds."
• April 2019
  • Buse Aktas gave a guest lecture in a Media Arts and Sciences class at Wellesley College.
  • Congratulations to Buse Aktas for receiving the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for her dedication in ES280 (Systems Engineering).
  • Daichi Kato, principal engineer at Toyota Research Japan, joined the lab as a visiting research scientist. Welcome, Daichi!
• March 2019
  • Buse Aktas gave a talk at the ArtTechPsyche Symposium on March 29th.
  • Thank you Dr Saeed for assisting us through a guided heart tour! See Photo
• January 2019
  • There was an article on Buse Aktas's work and practice, featured on the Harvard Gazette.
• October 2018
  • Lab Alumnus Paul Millman (current Vice President of Advanced Product Development at Intuitive Surgical) visited our lab! See Photo
• September 2018
  • Welcome to new lab members Zixi Liu and Sebastian Roubert Martinez!
• August 2018
  • Congratulations to Dr. Yashraj Narang for successfully defending his dissertation!
• July 2018
  • Our page on Laminar Jamming Structures is now live as a part of the Soft Robotics Toolkit!
• June 2018
  • Congratulations to Alperen Degirmenci, Douglas Perrin and Prof. Howe for receiving the Best Paper Award at IPCAI with "High Dynamic Range Ultrasound Imaging"!
  • Laminar jamming structures were featured in Wired!
• May 2018
  • Our work on laminar jamming structures was featured in the Harvard Gazette.
• April 2018
  • Congratulations to Dr. Alperen Degirmenci for successfully defending his dissertation!
• March 2018
  • Yashraj Narang's paper on laminar jamming has been accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials.
• January 2018
  • Qian Wan's paper on grasping has been accepted for publication in the IEEE RA-L journal and for presentation at ICRA 2018.
• December 2017
  • Alperen Degirmenci gave a guest talk on robotic catheters at the Worcester Polytechnic Insitute.
  • Daisuke Yamada and Alperen Degirmenci's paper on dynamic characterization of internal organs has been accepted to ISBI 2018.
  • Alperen Degirmenci and Douglas Perrin's paper on high dynamic range ultrasound imaging has been accepted to IPCAI 2018.
• November 2017
  • Yashraj Narang and Alperen Degirmenci's paper on laminar jamming has been accepted for publication in the IEEE RA-L journal and for presentation at ICRA 2018.
• September 2017
  • Welcome to new lab members Buse Aktas and Richard Nuckols!
• May 2017
  • Prof. Howe gave a talk on autonomous cardiac interventions at the C4 Surgical Robots workshop at ICRA 2017.
  • Paul Loschak and Alperen Degirmenci presented their work at ICRA 2017. They were a finalist of the Best Poster Paper Award at the C4 Surgical Robots workshop.
  • Alperen Degirmenci was selected as a SEAS Commencement Marshal for his service to the graduate student community.
• March 2017
  • Congratulations to Yashraj Narang for receiving the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for his dedication in ES240 (Solid Mechanics) last semester.
• January 2017
  • Congratulations to Dr. Paul Loschak for starting a new job at Medtronic!
  • Alperen Degirmenci gave a guest talk at the John Hopkins University LCSR Seminar.
• December 2016
  • Congratulations to Prof. Howe for receiving the Harvard Learning Incubator Faculty Fellowship!
  • Congratulations to Yashraj Narang and Prof. Howe for receiving the NRI-NSF grant to continue their efforts in achieving selective kinematics and stiffness in flexible robots.
• August 2016
  Our work on Advanced Real-Time Visualization for Robotic Heart Surgery is featured on the NVIDIA Developer website.
• July 2016
  • Prof. Howe gave a talk on Design, Sensing, and Motor Control in Biological and Robotic Systems at the TTI/Vanguard Conference on Autonomy in Brooklyn, NY.
  • Congratulations to Dr. Paul Loschak for successfully defending his dissertation!
• May 2016
  • Alperen Degirmenci and Qian Wan presented their work at ICRA 2016.
  • Yashraj Narang was selected as a Commencement Marshal for his service to the graduate student community.
  • Alex Hassan received the Hoopes Prize in recognition of his outstanding scholarly work.
  • Alex Hassan and Andy O'Rourke won the Dean's Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Engineering Project. Alex was advised by Alperen Degirmenci, and Andy was advised by Peter Hammer.
• April 2016
  • Daisuke Yamada, principal engineer at Toyota Research Japan, joined the lab as a visiting research scientist.
  • Alperen Degirmenci's haptic art is now on display at Le Laboratoire Cambridge until June 25. The art was created in partnership with rAndom International to explore the idea of a haptic Turing test.
• January 2016
  • Qian Wan's paper on grasping was accepted to ICRA 2016.
  • Alperen Degirmenci and Paul Loschak's paper on robotic cardiac catheters was accepted to ICRA 2016.
• December 2015
  • Prof. Howe presented latest work on grasping at ACRA 2015.
  • Qian Wan's paper has received an award at ACRA 2015.
• November 2015
  • Paul Loschak and Alperen Degirmenci presented at NERC 2015.
  • Qian Wan’s paper on grasping was accepted to ACRA 2015.
• October 2015
  Paul Loschak and Alperen Degirmenci presented a poster at the NAFIMA Workshop at IROS 2015.
• September 2015
  • Paul Loschak and Alperen Degirmenci gave talks at IROS 2015.
  • Paul Loschak chaired the Surgical Robotics I session at IROS 2015.
  • Prof. Howe presented latest work on grasping at ISRR 2015 in Italy.
• July 2015
  • Alperen Degirmenci has received an NSF Travel Grant to attend IROS 2015
  • Paul Loschak has received an IEEE RAS Student Travel Grant to attend IROS 2015
  • Leah Gaffney received an honorable mention award during the SEAS Design & Project Fair
• May 2015
  • Paul Loschak was chosen as a PC member on the MICCAI CARE committee
  • Qian Wan gave a talk on data-driven grasping at NEMS 2015
  • Alperen Degirmenci presented his work on micromanipulation at NEMS 2015
• April 2015
  Congratulations to Dr. Frank Hammond who will be joining the faculty at Georgia Tech as an Assistant Professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering
• March 2015
  • BioRobotics Lab members present posters at the 2015 IDEAS Symposium
  • Paul Loschak and Alperen Degirmenci received the Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
• January 2015
  Paul Loschak received the American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship
• November 2014
  Inexpensive, Durable Plastic Hands Let Robots Get a Grip - The iHY Hand was featured on IEEE Spectrum
• October 2014
  Alperen Degirmenci received the Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
• September 2014
  Laura Brattain's paper on instrument tracking and visualization was voted one of the three best papers at the AECAI Workshop, MICCAI 2014
• July 2014
  We welcome our newest PhD student, Yashraj Narang to our lab.
• November 2013
  Peripheral Vision 0013: Robert Howe on why simplicity is the key to building a better robot hand Engadget
• October 2013
  Robots to the rescue
  Harvard Gazette
• October 2013
  Biorobotics Lab members present at NERC
• May 2013
  TakkTile was featured on Science World Report, GizMag, Discovery News, and more!
• June 2012
  Congratulations to BioRobotics Lab member Laura Brattain, whose talk was voted second prize in the Audience Awards and selected for extended oral presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions (IPCAI 2012) on June 27, 2012 in Pisa, Italy
• May 2012
  NEW! Fast, cheap, and easy:
  High performance tactile array sensor using off-the-shelf components.
  Open source design
• March 2012
  The Economist | Monitor:
  An open-source robo-surgeon
• January 2012
  The Economist:
  Surgical robots The kindness of strangers
• December 2011
  Prof. Rob Howe is named a 2012 Fellow of the IEEE for contributions in haptic interfaces and robotic manipulation
• September 2011
  The SDM hand was featured in the Harvard Crimson: Robots in Motion
• September 2011
  Paul Novotny's GPU instrument tracking paper was one of two runners up for the Young Investigator Publication Impact Award at MiCCAI 2011
• April 2011
  The SDM Hand won TreeHugger's Best of Green Award in Science & Technology for bio-inspired design
• March 2011
  Samuel Kesner's work on Robotic Catheters was selected for the University Research and Entrepreneurship Symposium (URES): (Mass High Tech, SEAS Website, Harvard Gazette)
• January 2011
  Biorobotics Lab alum Amy Kerdok '06 was featured in SEAS's Q&A with Amy Kerdok '06 (Ph.D.)

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