PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Justin Werfel

Justin Werfel is a Harvard researcher whose work links artificial intelligence with collective behavior in robot swarms. He coauthored TERMES, a system for autonomous three-dimensional construction, and helped develop rules that let climbing robots build complex structures from local cues. In 2025, his lab presented soft robots inspired by California blackworms; in 2026, he published a perspective comparing learning in mobile and fixed collectives. As of October 2026, he is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard SEAS and leads the Designing Emergence Laboratory.

Works
130
Citations
3,113
h-index
29

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2006

    Artificial-swarm doctoral thesis

    His MIT doctoral thesis, Anthills Built to Order: Automating Construction with Artificial Swarms, dates to May 2006. He also coauthors a 2006 paper on distributed construction by mobile robots.

  2. 2011

    TERMES construction system

    With Kirstin Petersen and Radhika Nagpal, he coauthors TERMES, an autonomous system for three-dimensional collective construction, in 2011.

  3. 2014

    Termite-inspired construction rules

    In 2014, he coauthors a Science paper showing how climbing robots use local environmental cues to build complex structures.

  4. 2019

    Principal investigator for RETHi

    In 2019, he serves as principal investigator for Harvard’s RETHi program, part of a NASA-funded institute developing robotics for smart deep-space habitats.

  5. July 2025

    Blackworm-inspired robot collectives

    In July 2025, he leads Harvard research on a soft robotic platform inspired by California blackworms. The robots tangle into a cohesive blob, and the project wins ICRA’s Best Paper on Mechanisms and Design award.

  6. April 2026

    Collective intelligence perspective

    In April 2026, he publishes a Nature Machine Intelligence perspective on collective intelligence. It compares learning in mobile and static collectives and shows how each can benefit from mechanisms associated with the other.

  7. As of October 2026

    Leading the Designing Emergence Lab

    As of October 2026, he is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and leads the Designing Emergence Laboratory. The lab studies collective behavior and complex systems, including swarm robotics.

Career

  1. NowHarvard UniversitySenior Research Fellow, Lab lead

Education

  1. 2006Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD

From the biography.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Justin Werfel people.seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Anthills built to order : automating construction with artificial swarms dspace.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Robotic construction crew needs no foreman seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Wyss Institute roboticists win NASA award for developing smart deep-space habitats wyss.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. What a Tangled Robot We Weave seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Reviews & Analysis | Nature Machine Intelligence nature.com. Checked 27 October 2026.