About The Lab Welcome to the homepage of the MERGe Lab, where we are working on making M aterials E mbody R obots, Ge ometrically. We are located at UT Austin’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department and led by Professor Lillian Chin . We merge ideas across disciplines and see what interesting robots emerge as a result.
If you are interested in working with us, please read this FAQ page
Current UT students should apply via Google Form Prospective grad students should apply to UT ECE / MechE directly We do not take high school students or first semester freshmen We are broadly interested in the following research questions:
Design of novel actuators and sensors through geometry Algorithmic frameworks to generate mechanisms for custom mechanical properties Robot manipulation enhanced through accurate force and tactile sensing Participatory design-based robot deployment in real-world communities
Video of AuxBots moving forward in a mudskipper-style formation
Video of a 4 degree of freedom robotic platform built on handed shearing auxetics moving in all four degrees
Aug. 2026 – MERGe Lab was selected to be one of the featured labs in the UT-wide “What Starts Here” film shootAug. 2026 – Bill has been accepted for two late-breaking results, one at IROS 2026 and one at ASSETS 2026. Congratulations!Jul. 2026 – Lilly was selected to serve on the Awards Committee for BioRob 2026.Jun. 2026 – Andrew, Chong and Gu-Cheol’s paper were accepted to IROS 2026. See all y’all in Pittsburgh!Jun. 2026 – Lilly gave a talk at the 2026 Schmidt Sciences Interdisciplinary Science Summit.