Abriana Stewart-Height, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Contact
Building & Room:
EIB 158
Address:
929 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607
Email:
About
Research interests:
Dr. Stewart-Height leads the Bioinspired Robotics and Resilient Intelligence Laboratory (BR2I Lab). Her research investigates the integration of technologies and algorithms for long-term, autonomous multi-agent teams in extreme terrestrial environments. She draws on techniques from dynamical systems theory, control, biology, rehabilitation, and deep learning. She employs a failure-centric approach to develop intelligent agents that can reliably detect and strategically respond to unanticipated incidents in dynamic environments and perform complex tasks alongside humans or other robots as teammates during critical field operations such as disaster response, wildfire suppression, environmental remediation, nuclear plant management, and emergency wilderness medicine. Prior to joining UIC, she served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Selected Publications
- A. Stewart-Height, R. Bolli, E. Kamienski, and H. Asada, “Design and Experimental Validation of Woodwork-Inspired Soft Pneumatic Grippers,” 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Atlanta, GA, USA, 2025.
- A. Stewart-Height and D. E. Koditschek. (2024). Limb-Loss Recovery Gaits and Their Energetic Cost. In: Experimental Robotics. ISER 2023. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 20. Springer, Cham.
- A. Stewart-Height, D. E. Koditschek, and M. J. Johnson, “Reimagining robotic walkers for real-world outdoor play environments with insights from legged robots: a scoping review,” Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, pp. 1–21, Jun. 2021.
- A. De, A. Stewart-Height, and D. E. Koditschek, “Task-Based Control and Design of a BLDC Actuator for Robotics,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 2393-2400, July 2019.
Publication Aggregators
Education
Ph.D., Electrical and Systems Engineering
University of Pennsylvania, 2023
B.S., Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, 2017
Professional Memberships
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers