People

Elliott J. Rouse, PhD

Dr. Rouse is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Neurobionics Lab. The vision of his group is to discover the fundamental science that underlies human joint dynamics during locomotion and incorporate these discoveries in a new class of wearable robotic technologies. The Lab uses technical tools from mechanical and biomedical engineering applied to the complex challenges of human augmentation, physical medicine, rehabilitation and neuroscience. Dr. Rouse and his research have been featured at TED, on the Discovery Channel, CNN, National Public Radio, Wired Magazine UK, Business Insider, and Odyssey Magazine.

Dr. Rouse is a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation  Society and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, as well as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is a member of the IEEE EMBS Technical Committee on Biorobotics, and is on the Editorial Board of  RESNA’s Assistive Technology journal. He is dedicated to effective student mentoring and training, as well as translating his research to the public through entrepreneurship; he holds patents for the design and control of wearable robotic systems.

Dr. Rouse received the BS degree in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University in 2007, and the MS and PhD degrees in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Subsequently, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Fellow, working with the Biomechatronics Group in the MIT Media Lab. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Dr. Rouse was faculty in the School’s of Medicine and Engineering at Northwestern University, and a Research Scientist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the RIC). More information can be found on his personal website.

Hannah Frame, MS     Research Engineer

Hannah Frame graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BS in Physics from Emory University and went on to complete her MS in Mechanical Engineering at University of Texas at Austin. During graduate school, she worked in Dr. Rick Neptune’s Neuromuscular Biomechanics Lab and her research focused on evaluating the impact of a novel lateral stabilization device on neurologically-intact and post-stroke gait. Her research interests include evaluating rehabilitation interventions, understanding human locomotion, and developing tools to improve rehabilitative outcomes.

Varun Joshi, PhD     Mechanical Engineering

Varun Joshi earned B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2012, and a PhD from The Ohio State University in 2018. His doctoral research, with Prof. Manoj Srinivasan, was focused on using perturbation experiments and trajectory optimization to understand human stability and to develop dynamic simulations of stable human walkers. Varun is currently a postdoc at the University of Michigan studying the dynamics of pathological gait, working with Prof. Elliott Rouse (Neurobionics lab) and Prof. Chandramouli Krishnan (NeuRRo Lab). His research interests lie in understanding the movement of biological systems and recreating their capabilities with computer simulations and robotic hardware.

Gray Cortright Thomas, PhD       Electrical and Computer Engineering

Gray Thomas dreams of grandparents teaching soccer to children over the jet engine wails of their high power exoskeletons. With a self-designed 2012 B.S. in Engineering: Robotics from Olin College of Engineering fresh in his hand, he began his career at the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition to work on an ostrich-inspired passive dynamic running robot. He joined their humanoid robotics team, and helped them win the 2013 DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge. He worked in Java and added, among other features, a multi-contact controller modification that allowed the simulated robot to enter and exit cars. He got his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in Mechanical Engineering, working with Professor Luis Sentis. His doctoral work delved deep into the theory of feedback control for uncertain series elastic actuators, which won him NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship NNX15AQ33H, “Controlling Robots with a Spring in Their Step,” and the opportunity to work with the NASA R5 Valkyrie humanoid. During this time, a collaborator (Prashant Rao) and he won the ICRA 2017 best paper award in manipulation for their work on the control limits imposed by series elasticity in robot hands. Yet he drifted away from humanoids when he discovered strong parallels between force control of series elastic actuators and strength amplification control for exoskeletons—and that exoskeletons are also multi-contact robots. Exoskeletons then led him to become a postdoc at the University of Michigan in October 2019, working with Professors Robert Gregg (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Elliott Rouse (Mechanical Engineering). Gray’s expertise has grown to include frequency domain control theory, system identification for uncertain systems, and linear matrix inequalities for robust control. Personal Website.

Kevin Best, BS    Robotics

Kevin is a PhD student in the Robotics Department at the University of Michigan. He received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 2018, where he worked with Dr. Patrick Wensing on hopping robot control. Before coming to Michigan, Kevin worked in the industrial automation field, specializing in factory automation and prototype systems. At Michigan, he is co-advised by Dr. Bobby Gregg (LocoLab) and Dr. Elliott Rouse (Neurobionics). His research interests include control for prostheses and orthoses, human motor control, biomimicry, and optimization.

Kim Ingraham, MS     Mechanical Engineering

Kim is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. She received a BE in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2012. Before starting at Michigan, she worked as a Research Engineer in the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and is interested in the control, optimization, and biomechanics of bionic prostheses and exoskeletons. More information can be found on her personal website. 

Ung Hee (Jordan) Lee, BS     Mechanical Engineering

Ung Hee is a PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. His research interests include control of robots and robot programming, human & robot perception, and developing prosthetics using brain-machine interfaces. Ung Hee received a BS degree in Physics from Korea University in 2015. While he was in Korea, he worked in rehabilitation robotics research at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. Before joining the Neurobionics Lab, he worked in the Automotive Research Center at the University of Michigan from 2016 to 2017 and interned in Fetch Robotics Inc., as a robotics software engineer during Summer 2017.

Leo Medrano, BS     Mechanical Engineering

Leo graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering. For his undergraduate research at the Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility, Leo earned the President’s Undergraduate Research Award. At Georgia Tech, Leo served as the Mechanical Lead for Georgia Tech’s undergraduate robotics organization, in which he designed a fleet of small robots to play autonomous soccer in several international competitions. He also collaborated with the GTRI RoboLab to design an unmanned underwater drone platform for maritime mapping and exploration. He is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering, and his primary interest is studying the impact of powered exoskeletons on human energetics to inform future device designs.

 Yves Nazon II, MS     Mechanical Engineering

Yves Nazon II received the BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and the MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University. During his time as an undergraduate student he participated in the Meyerhoff Scholars and the MARC U*STAR trainee programs, became a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society, worked in the Energy Harvesting & Design Optimization Lab under the direction of Dr. Soobum Lee, and did summer research at Purdue University, MIT, and University of Southern California. Yves has been named an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a GEM University Fellow. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and is interested in the control of exoskeletons. 

 Nikko Van Crey, BS    Robotics

Nikko received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Multidisciplinary Design from the University of Michigan. In undergraduate he researched the relationship between optimal bipedal gaits and the underlying passive dynamics in the Robotics and Motion Laboratory. He also spent two years leading drivetrain and mechatronic design for Formula Hybrid SAE vehicles. In between his undergraduate and graduate studies, Nikko conducted research at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Robotic Climbers and Grippers Division (347M), developing underactuated grippers to capture satellites and orbital debris. Nikko is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and received the Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship Award. His primary research interests include bio-inspired robotics, mechanism design, modeling, dynamics, and control.  

Amanda Shorter, MS     Biomedical Engineering

Amanda Shorter received her BAS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada in 2015, and her MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL USA, in 2017.  As an undergraduate student, she worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in the Center for Image Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention. Her work focused on the mechanical design of pediatric neurosurgical continuum robots. Amanda was recognized as the 2015 Sandford Fleming Foundation Award recipient for her outstanding contributions throughout her multiple work placements. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. Her primary research interests include changes to the biomechanics and neural control of movement in the presence of pathology, and applications in the design and control of assistive technologies and rehabilitation. 

Chelsea Richards, MPO     Orthotics Resident

Chelsea Richards earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Biomechanics from The University of Florida in 2018 and subsequently earned a master’s degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics from Northwestern University in 2020. Chelsea spent time in UF’s Soft Matter Research Laboratory during her undergraduate career as well as helped to develop coursework for classes within UF’s Institute for Excellence in Engineering Education that included topics such as 3D printing, circuits, and Arduino programming. During her time at Northwestern, Chelsea completed a capstone project focusing on sustainability within orthotics and prosthetics. Chelsea is currently an Orthotic Resident at the University of Michigan Orthotics and Prosthetics Center and her main interests include development of clinically viable orthotic and prosthetic technology, biomechanics and control of bionic orthoses and prostheses, and biomechanics/biodynamics of pathological gait.