Kirstin Petersen

Timeline

1. 2005–2008

   Engineering and modern AI

   She earns a B.Sc. in electro-technical engineering at Odense University College of Engineering in 2005, then completes a master's in modern artificial intelligence with Prof. John Hallam at the University of Southern Denmark in 2008.

2. 2014

   Designing TERMES robots

   At Harvard University and the Wyss Institute, she completes a Ph.D. thesis with Prof. Radhika Nagpal in 2014. As a Harvard SEAS graduate student, she spearheads the design and construction of TERMES robots and bricks, which carry bricks, build staircases, and follow simple rules to construct structures independently.

3. 2014–2016

   Postdoc at Max Planck

   She works as a postdoc with Director Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems from 2014 to 2016. In 2015, she becomes a fellow with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems.

4. 2016

   Cornell's collective robotics lab

   At Cornell, she starts the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department in 2016. The group studies bio-inspired robot collectives and their natural counterparts.

5. 2019

   A Packard Fellowship

   In 2019, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation selects her for a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Her work focuses on long-term autonomy in multi-robot systems for areas including construction and precision agriculture.

6. 2021

   An NSF CAREER Award

   She receives the NSF CAREER Award in 2021 for Environmentally-Mediated Coordination in Natural and Robot Swarms, with the project period running through 2026.

7. 2025

   AI-enabled robotic water sampling

   She leads an AI-enabled robotic eDNA sampling project with Peter McIntyre in 2025. Cornell Atkinson supports it through a 2030 Project Fast Grant.

8. As of October 2026

   Associate professor at Cornell

   In February 2026, she co-senior authors Science Advances research showing that microrobot swarms spinning on water generate fluidic torque to manipulate passive structures. As of October 2026, she is an associate professor in Cornell's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.