Elliot Hawkes

Biography

Elliot W. Hawkes is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB. Previously, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Allison Okamura at Stanford University, received his PhD with Prof. Mark Cutkosky, also at Stanford, and worked at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab and the ETH Multi-scale Robotics Lab. He has received a variety of awards and fellowships, and his work has received press from outlets such as the NY Times, BBC, Cell, Science, and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Research

Elliot Hawkes’s research focuses on bringing together design, mechanics, and non-traditional materials to advance the vision of robust, adaptable, human-safe robots that can thrive in the uncertain, unstructured world. Current projects involve bio-inspired microstructured adhesive materials, non-linear compliant mechanisms, high-power soft actuators, soft exoskeletons, and growing robots.