People

Faculty

Vishesh Vikas

Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering

Email : vvikas@ua.edu
Phone: (205)-348-1607

Post-doctoral Researchers

Harish Bezawada

Harish is from India, completed his Masters in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from the University of Missouri - Columbia; and his Ph.D. from University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa in 2022. His research interests are in soft manipulators, shape reconstruction, and jamming. His hobbies include biking, racquetball, and hiking.

Research Publications: RA-L/IROS 2022, ACC 2022

Graduate Students

Arun Niddish Mahendran

Arun Niddish is from India and graduated with B.Tech (Honors) in Mechanical Engineering from SASTRA University. His current research work is under wireless communication and inertial sensors. He prefers playing outdoor sports rather than indoor gaming and likes to play Football and Table tennis.

Research Publications: IROS 2021

Caitlin Freeman

Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Caitlin Freeman is a PhD student studying mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama. Her research interests include fabrication and locomotion of soft robots, bio-inspired dynamics and controls, and engineering curricula. Outside of the lab, Caitlin enjoys reading and going on walks with her dogs.

Research Publications: Soft Robotics 2022, IROS 2021

Chase Fortin

Chase Fortin is originally from Orland Park, Illinois. His research interests include tensegrity robots and he looks forward to the new challenges research brings each day. He enjoys swimming, frisbee, and going on bike rides in his free time.

Cole Woods

Cole Woods is from Fairhope, Alabama and completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Alabama. Currently, he is pursuing his Masters of Business Administration (MBA). His research is in bio-inspired mechatronics with the goal to balance an inverted pendulum on variable surfaces by using non-contact sensors. His hobbies are woodworking and lawn maintainince - he has made signs, clocks, tables, and chairs.

Research Publications: RA-L/IROS 2022, ACC 2022, IEEE Sensors Journal 2021, ASME DSC-Letters 2021

Justin Conzola

Justin Conzola is from Raleigh, North Carolina. He completed his undergraduate mechanical engineering work at the University of Alabama in 2022. He is currently enrolled in the MSME program at UA with a concentration in Dynamic Systems and Controls. His research interests include actuation and locomotion of soft robots. In his free time, he enjoys working out and playing disc golf.

Lauren Faris (co-advising with Kenneth Ricks)

Lauren Faris is from Irmo, South Carolina and completed her Bachelor’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics from the University of Alabama. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on designing and controlling terrestrial exploratory robots utilizing tensegrity structures. She is an avid cook that has written several family cookbooks and enjoys reading and being in nature as much as possible.

Undergraduate Students

Kyle Scott
Kyle Scott is from Memphis, TN and is currently a junior majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Kyle is a member of the Randall Research Scholars Program with which he has a job as Lab Manager and System Administrator. He enjoys camping and playing video games in his free time.

Lab Alumni

Graduate

Harish Bezawada (2022)
PhD dissertation - "Reconstructing Soft Manipulator Shape Modeled as Multi-Segment Pythogorean Hodograph Curves with Visual and Slope Feedback"
Clayton Gotberg (2021)
MS Thesis - "Synthesis and Analysis of Tensegrity Mechanisms"
Michael Maynard (2021)
Miranda Tanouye (2018), Honeybee Robotics
MS Thesis - "A Kinematic Analysis of a Stacked Planar Compliant Tensegrity Mechanism"
David Leech

Undergraduate

Joshua Wong
Chloe Flack, NVIDIA
Emma Scott, Michelin North America
Dalton Stacks
Georgia Patterson
Tyler Rhodes
Will Conlin
Matthew Pilus