About The Lab

Welcome to the homepage of the MERGe Lab, where we are working on making Materials Embody Robots, Geometrically. 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 for more information.

• 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:

1. Design of novel actuators and sensors through geometry
2. Algorithmic frameworks to generate mechanisms for custom mechanical properties
3. Robot manipulation enhanced through accurate force and tactile sensing
4. Participatory design-based robot deployment in real-world communities