People

Faculty

David J. Cappelleri
Professor
dcappell@purdue.edu

David J. Cappelleri is the Assistant Vice President for Research Innovation in the Purdue University Office of Research and a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (by courtesy).  Prof. Cappelleri founded the Multi-Scale Robotics & Automation Lab that performs cutting-edge research on robotic and automation systems at various length scales: macro-scale (cm to m), meso-scale (~100’s of um to a few mm’s), micro-scale (10’s of um to 100’s of um), and nano-scale (nm).  He is currently the Purdue site director for the NSF Engineering Research Center on the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag).  Prof. Cappelleri has received various awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching Award, John J. Gallen Memorial Award, the Association for Lab Automation Young Scientist Award, the B.F.S. Schaefer Scholar Award, and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Prof. Cappelleri received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University, and The Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.

Lab Members

Postdoctoral Researchers

PhD Students

Aaron Davis
Ph.D. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering
davi1381@purdue.edu

Active Mobile Microrobots for Drug Delivery, Micromanipulation, and Cellular Measurement

Aarya Deb
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
deb8@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Kitae Kim
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
kim3686@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Yang (Helen) Yang
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
yang2499@purdue.edu

Mobile Microrobotics

Masters Students

Oliver Shindell
M.S. Mechanical Engineering
oshindel@purdue.edu

Microrobotics

Undergraduate Students

Alexa Barron
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
barron49@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Iris Gong
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
igong@purdue.edu

Microrobotics

Sean MacDonald
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
sdmacdon@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Brian Schmidt
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
schmi337@purdue.edu

Microrobotics

Lab Alumni

Postdoctoral Researchers

• Georges Adam (2022-2023)
  Current Position: Assistant Professor, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
  
• Sagar Chowdhury (2014-2016)
  Current Position: Caterpillar
  
• Wuming Jing (2013-2016)
  Current Position: Continental
  
• Benjamin Johnson (2020-2021)
  Current Position: ASML
  
• Maria Guix Noguera (2016-2018)
  Current Position: Ramon y Cajal Senior Researcher, University of Barcelona, Spain
  

PhD Students

• Georges Adam (2022)
  Thesis Title: Advanced Force Sensing and Novel Microrobotic Mechanisms for Biomedical Applications
  
• Arindam Chowdhury (May 2021)
  Current Position: KLA Tencor
  Thesis Title: Advanced Perception for Robotics and Automation Applications
  
• Wuming Jing (December 2013)
  Current Position: Assistant Professor, Lawrence Technological University
  Thesis Title: Towards Functional Magnetic Microrobotics
  
• Benjamin Johnson (May 2020)
  Current Position: Post-doctoral Researcher, Purdue University
  Thesis Title: Local Magnetic Field System Design and Control for Independent Control of Multiple Mobile Microrobots
  
• Juncheng Li (May 2024)
  Current Position: Amazon Robotics
  Thesis Title: Learning Grasp Policies for Modular End-Effectors of Mobile Manipulation Platforms in Cluttered Environments
  
• Yangbo Long (December 2014)
  Current Position: Siemens
  Thesis Title: Design, Modeling, and Control of an Overactuated Micro Aerial Vehicle
  
• Daniel McArthur (August 2019)
  Current Position: Sandia National Labs
  Thesis Title: Design of an Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Physical Interaction with the Environment
  
• Liyuan Tan (May 2024)
  Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher, TU Dredsen and DKFZ
  Thesis Title: Modeling, Design, and Fabrication, of Magnetic Hydrogel Microrobots for Advanced Functionalities
  
• Ben Abruzzo (May 2021)
  Current Position: U.S. Army Picatinny Arsenal
  Thesis Title: Autonomy and Perception of Robotic Teams and Agents for Cooperative Localization and Threat Discrimination
  

Masters Students

• Ze An (2019)
  Current Position: Pony.ai
  Thesis Title: Agricultural Robotic Platform for In-row and Under Canopy Crop Monitoring and Assessment (Project)
  
• Shi Bai (2012)
  Current Position: Stevens Institute of Technology
  Thesis Title: Investigations on Lightweight SLAM Solutions for Mico Aerial Vehicles
  
• Max Beckemeier (2022)
  Current Position: CNH
  
• Chenghao Bi (2019)
  Current Position: Medtronic
  Thesis Title: Design of Magnetic Tumbling Microrobots for Complex Environments and Biomedical Appliacations
  
• Yang Ding (2019)
  Current Position: Tiger Technology
  Thesis Title: Design of a Robotic Cannula for Robotic Lumbar Discectomy
  
• Andreas Gelardos (2013)
  Thesis Title: MAV Platform Design, Analysis, and Control
  
• Zekun Gong (2018)
  
• Peter Jaron (2015)
  
• Bo Ji (2019)
  Thesis Title: Design and Control of a Low-cost Micromanipulator
  
• Benjamin Johnson (2015)
  Current Position: PhD Student, Purdue University
  Thesis Title: Design of a Surgical Manipulator System for Lumbar Discectomy Procedures
  
• Che Kun Law (2018)
  Current Position: Vicarious AI
  Thesis Title: Autonomous Mobile Robot for Agriculture Crop Monitoring and Precision Agriculture (Project)
  
• Zilin Li (December 2022)
  Current Position: Stryker
  Thesis Title: Robotic Inspection for the Oil & Gas Industry (Project)
  
• Aayush Mathur (May 2024)
  Current Position: Parker Hannifin
  Thesis Title: Automated Centrifugal Band Extraction
  
• Jongkwang Park (2022)
  Current Position: Qualcomm
  
• Paras H. Patel (2012)
  Current Position: Siemens
  Thesis Title: Design and Control of a T-Quadrotor Micro Aerial Vehicle
  
• Ganesh Ram Ramanujam Karthikeyan (2018)
  Current Position: Cummins Inc.
  
• Joseph Seymour (2015)
  
• Jarod Throckmorton (2022)
  Current Position: Reishauer Corporation
  
• Vinoth Venkatesan (2018)
  Current Position: The MathWorks, Inc.
  Thesis Title: Flexible automation for meso and micro-scale manipulation and assembly
  
• Tianqi Ye (2018)
  

Undergraduate Students

• Archit Agarawal
  
• Nitya Agrawal
  
• Karl Ang
  
• Emma Caldwell
  
• Alex Calisto
  
• Alan Chen
  
• Joseph Jia Rong Chen
  
• Yong-Gyun Cho (2019)
  
• Ryan Craker (2020)
  Current Position: Allegion, PLC
  
• Andrew Croissant
  
• Thomas Daily
  
• Alessandro DiLeonardo
  
• Andrew Domicolo
  Current Position: Foster Wheeler
  
• Ryan Drager (2020)
  
• John Dumbleton
  
• Allison Earnhardt (2022)
  Current Position: PhD student, Princeton University
  
• Matt Edwards
  Current Position: Pratt & Whitney
  
• Nathan Esantsi (2019)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, Carnegie Mellon University
  
• Michael Fatovic
  Current Position: Jewel Precision
  
• Evan Fisher
  
• Emmett Freeman
  
• Kevin Girardi
  
• Abby Grillo (2021)
  Current Position: PhD Student, Vanderbilt University
  
• Ateev Gupta
  Current Position: Intern at Apple Inc.
  
• Patrick Hammer
  Current Position: Zodiac Aerospace
  
• Christopher Harnack
  
• Jared Horton
  
• Brian Huang
  
• Jack Hyslop
  
• Jianxiong Wang (2018)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, UCLA
  
• Yoo Hyun (Wendy) Kim
  
• David Kleszyk
  
• Cara Koepele (2018)
  Current Position: General Motors
  Thesis Title: 3D-Printed Microswimmers with Nanostructures for Real-Time Color Tracking
  
• Tyler Landers
  
• Jason Lee
  
• Darren Lie
  
• Zihao Lin (2020)
  
• Matt Lyng (2019)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, University of Michigan
  
• Sean Lyttle
  Current Position: ETH Zurich
  
• Alfred Mayalu
  Current Position: Virginia Tech
  
• Noah Mehringer
  
• Eric Mesina
  
• Kasin Mongkonrattanachai
  
• Preethi Moorthy
  
• Elijah Moss
  
• Amanda Mudd (2021)
  
• Siddharth Nathella (2022)
  Current Position: Graduate student, Georgia Tech
  
• Zhangjian Ouyang (2019)
  
• Nick Pagano
  Current Position: Harrington Hoists
  
• Anirudh Panuganty (2020)
  
• Fagun Patel (2020)
  
• Matthew Pierce (2023)
  
• Ethan Radke (2022)
  
• Naveed Riaziat (2020)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, Johns Hopkins University
  
• Sharon Rooker
  
• Josiah Rudge (2020)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, Georgia Tech
  
• Danielle Sack
  
• Kuvarjit Sagar
  
• Haripriya Sakthivel (2020)
  
• Mark Schmidt
  
• Broderick Schwartz (2019)
  Current Position: Graduate Student, University of Iowa
  
• Stephanie Senkevich
  
• Madyson Shank (2020)
  
• Michael Shanks (2020)
  Current Position: Graduate student, Purdue University
  
• Cole Stephens
  
• Marshall Tatro
  
• Agathiya Tharun
  
• Nam Tra
  
• Nachiket Vatkar (2021)
  
• Nikolaos Vitoroulis
  
• Bogdan Vlahov
  Current Position: Graduate Student, Georgia Tech
  
• Ethan Wang
  
• Jeremy Wang
  Current Position: University of Pennsylvania
  
• Qing Wen (2020)
  
• Ellexi Wickstrom
  
• Andrew Williams
  
• Bixing Yan
  
• Samuel Yang
  
• Xingyu Zhou
  
• Jahel Carrera Zuniga