I am currently on the job market, seeking a tenure-track assistant professor position starting in Fall 2025. My research centers around the field of locomotion. Please find below for my research perspectives for organismal biology and robotics.

Robotics: Locomotion in complex environments (e.g., rubble, leaf litter, granular media) is essential to mobile engineered systems such as robots. Effective locomotion requires complex control strategies to interact with terrain heterogeneity. Computational intelligence (CI), which typically includes rapid terrain sensing and active feedback controls, is a widely recognized component in locomotion strategy. Alternatively, mechanical intelligence (MI) – passive response to environmental perturbation governed by physical laws or mechanical constraints – is an important yet less studied component. My research program focus on “why” and “how” MI can contribute to effective locomotion using the examples of multi-legged robots (redundantly segmented bodies with simple legs). For the “why,” we quantify a specific MI that emerges from leg redundancy. By modeling locomotion as a stochastic process (analogous to signal transmission over noisy channels), we show that MI, without any CI, is sufficient to generate reliable and effective locomotion. To explore the “how,” we take a quantitative analogy to signal transmission algorithms (e.g., error correcting/detecting codes) and propose a co-design coding scheme for multi-legged locomotion. Specifically, (i) additional legs, with higher control dimensions, can enable a broader spectrum of capabilities, including load carrying/pulling, sidewinding, rolling, and obstacle-climbing; (ii) the inclusion of CI (feedback controls) can enhance multi-legged locomotion speed while preserving the feature of robustness; and (iii) CI might reduce the number of redundant legs required to navigate a particular terrain. Finally, the coordination and competition between MI and CI in a broader framework termed Embedded Intelligence (EI) for applications such as search-and-rescue, agriculture, and the development of soft, micro, and modular robots.

Biology: Inthe field of comparative biomechanics, a central focus is to understand how the morphology-locomotion relationship varies among species and potentially drives adaptation. Despite extensive statistical analyses on this relationship, the underlying mechanisms — such as the diverse ways animals leverage their morphologies — remain less understood. My research program proposes a theory-driven integrative approach to explore connections among morphology, strategy, and locomotion performance in complex natural environments. A key contribution is to integrate theoretical and robophysical methods to establish novel hypotheses. In particular, robophysical platforms with manipulatable morphology can serve as valuable tools to reconstruct infrequent/extinct animal behaviors. Geometric mechanics, a locomotion analysis tool firmly rooted in physical principles, then facilitates a bi-directional bridge between animal behaviors and robophysical experiments. For example, one can use geometric mechanics to analyze the role of body undulationduring the evolutionary morphological transition from lizard-like to snake-like forms, and subsequently test through robophysical platforms. One can also employ geometric mechanics to investigate the impact of adding more legs to the control architecture ofrobophysical legged locomotion, and then test empirical hypotheses through animal experiments.