PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Sarah Bergbreiter

Sarah Bergbreiter is a roboticist whose research focuses on microrobotics and small-scale locomotion. She earned degrees at Princeton and Berkeley, began her faculty career at Maryland in 2008, led the Maryland Robotics Center, and joined Carnegie Mellon in 2018. With collaborators, she developed Picotaur, which can run and climb miniature stairs, and led the NSF-supported project that produced Zippy, a battery-powered biped. She is the Dan and Karen Swanson Endowed Professor and Associate Head for Strategic Initiatives in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

Works
195
Citations
2,895
h-index
28

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1999–2007

    Princeton and Berkeley degrees

    She earns a B.S.E. in electrical engineering at Princeton in 1999, then an M.S. in 2004 and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley in 2007, with a focus on microrobotics.

  2. 2008–2013

    Faculty work at Maryland

    She joins the University of Maryland in 2008 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering with a joint appointment in the Institute for Systems Research. Her microrobotics research earns the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2008, the NSF CAREER Award in 2011, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2013.

  3. January 2016

    Directing Maryland Robotics Center

    She becomes director of the Maryland Robotics Center in January 2016, succeeding founding director S.K. Gupta.

  4. 2017

    An ISR faculty award

    She receives the 2017 ISR Outstanding Faculty Award as an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research.

  5. 2018

    Joining Carnegie Mellon

    She joins Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in fall 2018 as a professor.

  6. 2024

    Picotaur climbs miniature stairs

    With Aaron Johnson, she develops Picotaur, a 7.9 mm robot from their labs that runs, turns, pushes loads and climbs miniature stairs. It alternates between walking and jumping.

  7. 2025

    Zippy walks on battery power

    With Aaron Johnson, she leads the NSF-supported project that produces Zippy, a self-contained biped under 1.5 inches tall. It walks, turns, skips and climbs small steps using its onboard battery, actuator and control system.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate head at Carnegie Mellon

    She is the Dan and Karen Swanson Endowed Professor and Associate Head for Strategic Initiatives in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon. In 2026, she co-chairs the NSF FRR Robotics Annual Meeting for Carnegie Mellon.

Career

  1. Since 2018Carnegie Mellon UniversityDan and Karen Swanson Endowed Professor; Associate Head for Strategic Initiatives
  2. 2008–2018University of MarylandAssistant Professor; Associate Professor, Director

Education

  1. 2007University of California, BerkeleyPh.D.
  2. 2004University of California, BerkeleyM.S.
  3. 1999Princeton UniversityB.S.E.

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

Most-cited works

  1. The principles of cascading power limits in small, fast biological and engineered systems2018 · Science · 266 citationsWith Robert Wood
  2. CotsBots: an off-the-shelf platform for distributed robotics2004 · IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) · 139 citations
  3. Controlled Assembly of Liquid Metal Inclusions as a General Approach for Multifunctional Composites2020 · Advanced Materials · 138 citations
  4. Rapid Three-Dimensional Printing in Water Using Semiconductor–Metal Hybrid Nanoparticles as Photoinitiators2017 · Nano Letters · 106 citations
  5. Toward Autonomy in Sub-Gram Terrestrial Robots2019 · Annual Review of Control Robotics and Autonomous Systems · 89 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Carnegie Mellon University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Carnegie Mellon University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Carnegie Mellon University. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Carnegie Mellon University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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  1. Sarah Bergbreiter | About | Carnegie Mellon University scholars.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Sarah Bergbreiter - College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University engineering.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Bergbreiter named director of Maryland Robotics Center robotics.umd.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Sarah Bergbreiter wins ISR Outstanding Faculty Award robotics.umd.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. It’s an ant… it’s a robot… it’s Picotaur! The unrivaled micro robot engineering.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Carnegie Mellon Researchers Build World’s Smallest Biped Robot news.pantheon.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Organizers nrifrr-mtg26.org. Checked 20 October 2026.