Katherine Kuchenbecker

Also known as Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Katherine Kuchenbecker is a roboticist whose haptics research helps robots learn to manipulate objects and interact with people through touch. She earned mechanical-engineering degrees at Stanford and completed postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins before joining Penn, where her group developed tactile systems for autonomous robots. Her work includes HuggieBot and CUTE electrohydraulic wearables, and she became an IEEE Fellow in 2021. She is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and an honorary professor at the University of Stuttgart.

Now at: Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and University of Stuttgart

Timeline

2000–2007

A Stanford doctorate in haptics

Born in Los Angeles, she earns a B.S. in mechanical engineering at Stanford in 2000, an M.S. in 2002 and a Ph.D. in 2006 with advisor Günter Niemeyer. She studies haptic feedback for teleoperation and virtual reality, then completes postdoctoral research with Allison Okamura at Johns Hopkins from 2006 to 2007.
2007–2013

Learning touch at Penn

She joins Penn's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics as a Skirkanich Assistant Professor in 2007 and works in the GRASP Lab. She and Max Likhachev bring a PR2 robot to Penn and explore machine learning for autonomous robot tasks; the group processes tactile signals so the robot can pick up unknown objects and interact with people. Popular Science names her to its 2010 Brilliant Ten for haptics research.
2013–2015

Tenure and a Penn chair

Penn promotes her to associate professor with tenure in 2013 and gives her a secondary appointment in Computer and Information Science. In 2015, she holds the Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Chair and directs the Haptics Group, whose work spans robot-assisted surgery, stroke rehabilitation and personal robots.
2017

Director at Max Planck

She becomes a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart in 2017.
2021–2022

An IEEE Fellowship and HuggieBot

IEEE elevates her to Fellow in 2021. In 2022, her team takes HuggieBot to EuroHaptics, where the robot hugs more than 100 people and wins the best demo prize.
2024

CUTE wearable haptics

In 2024, she coauthors an Advanced Science paper on CUTE wearable devices for broad-bandwidth haptic cues.
January 2025

Electrohydraulic wearable release

MPI-IS announces electrohydraulic wearable devices for haptic feedback in January 2025.
As of October 2026

Director at Max Planck

She is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and has been an honorary professor at the University of Stuttgart since 2022.