People

Principal Investigator

Kevin Chen   yufengc@mit.edu
Kevin Chen (CV) is currently an associate professor without tenure (AWOT) at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT. He received his PhD in Engineering Sciences at Harvard University in 2017 and his bachelor’s degree in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 2012. His work focuses on developing multifunctional and multimodal insect-scale robots. His research interests also include developing high bandwidth and robust soft actuators for microrobot manipulation and locomotion. He is a recipient of the Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award, the Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award, the NSF CAREER award, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator award, several best paper awards (TRO 2021, RAL 2020, and IROS 2015), and the Ruth and Joel Spira Teaching Excellence Award.

Graduate students

Suhan Kim   suhank@mit.edu
Suhan Kim is a PhD student in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He received his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU). Suhan’s research interest is on the fabrication and integration of soft and micro robotics, and currently focuses on developing 4-legged crawling robots. Suhan received ‘Outstanding BS Thesis Award’ for his undergrad research project, and was nominated as the finalist for best paper award at RoboSoft 2020 conference with his research topic during Master’s degree. Suhan likes cooking and taking photographs.

Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao   yhhsiao@mit.edu
Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He is interested in the design and control of micro air vehicles. Yi-Hsuan obtained his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from City University of Hong Kong. He is a recipient of the Campbell L. Searle Graduate Fellowship at MIT and he is awarded Government Scholarship by the Taiwanese Government. In his free time, Yi-Hsuan likes playing baseball, swimming, and visiting museums. He is also a big fan of Red Sox!

Quang Kieu   qkieu@mit.edu
Quang is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He is interested in circuit design and analysis for power electronics and robotic control systems. He is currently focusing on developing <1g high voltage circuit for enabling practical electrostatic actuators with power autonomy. In his free time, Quang enjoys biking around Boston, and helping out his undergraduate solar car team develop their electrical system.

Jiaze Cai   shiqiche@mit.edu
Jiaze is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University and his M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering (with a concentration in Control of Robotic and Autonomous Systems) from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interest is in the design and low-level control of bio-inspired aerial robots, particularly bird-scale and micro flapping-wing platforms. Outside of research, Jiaze enjoys aerial photography and playing soccer.

Tony Guan   zhijianr@mit.edu
Zhongtao (Tony) Guan is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. He received his bachelor’s degree in Electronic Information Engineering from ShanghaiTech University. He is interested in the perception and control of micro robotics. In his free time, he likes running and travelling.

Alumni

Steven Ceron (Postdoc) sceron@umich.edu
Younghoon Lee (Postdoc)
Zhijian Ren (PhD) zhijianr@mit.edu
Cat Arase (Undergraduate) carase@mit.edu
Kyle Heinz (Undergraduate) kyleh51@mit.edu