PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Hannah Stuart

Also known as Hannah S. Stuart

Hannah Stuart is a UC Berkeley robotics researcher who develops robot hands and touch sensing for autonomous manipulation. She earned mechanical engineering degrees at George Washington University and Stanford, and joined Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in January 2018. Her work has included the Ocean One hands for marine manipulation, the EMBUR digging robot, and the Dorsal Grasper for people with spinal cord injuries. As of October 2026, she is an associate professor of mechanical engineering, holds the Howard Penn Brown Chair in Mechanical Engineering, and heads the Embodied Dexterity Group.

Works
70
Citations
1,313
h-index
16

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 28 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2011–2013

    Mechanical engineering degrees

    She earns a BS in mechanical engineering at George Washington University in 2011 and an MS in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in 2013.

  2. 2016

    A Lieberman Fellowship

    In 2016, she receives a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellowship at Stanford University while studying mechanical engineering.

  3. 2017

    The Ocean One hands

    In 2017, she coauthors The Ocean One hands: An adaptive design for robust marine manipulation in the International Journal of Robotics Research.

  4. 2018

    A doctorate and Berkeley

    She completes her PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in 2018. In January 2018, she joins UC Berkeley as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

  5. 2020–2021

    NASA and STEM2D grants

    In 2020, she receives a NASA Early Career Faculty grant for research on teams of small robots that attach to loose terrain and perform manipulation tasks. She receives a Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D grant in 2021.

  6. 2022

    The EMBUR digging robot

    In 2022, Stuart and her collaborators demonstrate EMBUR, a robot that uses legs inspired by Pacific mole crabs to dig vertically into dry media. The work combines robot design with the study of how animals burrow.

  7. May 2023

    An NSF CAREER award

    In May 2023, her Embodied Dexterity Group receives an NSF CAREER award for Robotic Augmentation of Human Reflexes and Reach through Collaborative Grasping.

  8. September 2023

    The Smart Suction Cup

    In September 2023, she coauthors Haptic search with the Smart Suction Cup on adversarial objects with Jungpyo Lee, Sebastian D. Lee and Tae Myung Huh. The system uses internal airflow measurements to guide touch-based grasping; experiments show up to 2.5 times the grasping success of a vision planner alone in a bin-picking task.

  9. 2025

    The Dorsal Grasper

    In 2025, she works with Andrew “Drew” McPherson and Jungpyo Lee on the Dorsal Grasper, a wearable device for people with spinal cord injuries. Robotic fingers on the back of the hand use voluntary wrist extension to help users grasp objects across the space their arm can reach.

  10. As of October 2026

    Professor and lab head

    As of October 2026, she is an associate professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and holds the Howard Penn Brown Chair in Mechanical Engineering. She is principal investigator of the Embodied Dexterity Group, where her research includes robot hands and tactile sensing for autonomous manipulation.

Career

  1. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyAssociate Professor
  2. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyHoward Penn Brown Chair in Mechanical Engineering
  3. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyPrincipal Investigator of the Embodied Dexterity Group
  4. From 2018University of California, BerkeleyAssistant Professor

Education

  1. 2018Stanford UniversityPhD in mechanical engineering
  2. 2013Stanford UniversityMS in mechanical engineering
  3. 2011George Washington UniversityBS in mechanical engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Hannah Stuart yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Meet our new faculty: Hannah Stuart, mechanical engineering - Berkeley News news.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  2. All 2016 VPGE Fellows | Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education vpge.stanford.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  3. Publications edg.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  4. Hannah Stuart edg.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  5. RAS TC on Soft Robotics presents its 2nd debate! - IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Website ieee-ras.org. Checked 28 October 2026.
  6. Embodied Dexterity Group edg.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  7. Forceful Manual Manipulation with Millirobot Ensembles on Unreliable Substrates - NASA nasa.gov. Checked 28 October 2026.
  8. Digging deep - Berkeley Engineering engineering.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  9. [2309.07360] Haptic search with the Smart Suction Cup on adversarial objects arxiv.org. Checked 28 October 2026.
  10. New assistive device enhances grasping for people with spinal cord injuries - Berkeley Engineering engineering.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  11. Hannah Stuart - UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering me.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  12. People edg.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.