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    • The Smart Materials and Robotics Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research lab within the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We are creating new soft multifunctional materials that are safe for human interaction and exhibit unique combinations of electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. These efforts lie in the emerging fields of wearable computing, soft robotics, and robotic materials.


  • Wearable Computing
    Electronic skin for gesture monitoring

  • Robotics
    Soft robotic quadruped

  • Advanced Material Development
    Robust soft-matter electronics

    • RECENT NEWS

    2023-

    March-
    Congratulations to Kasey Moomau, an undergraduate student in the lab, on being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
    March-
    Congratulations to Patrick McManigal and Spencer Pak for winning third place at the College of Engineering pitch competition.
    March-
    Prof. Markvicka co-organized the 2023 College of Engineering Pitch Competition (2 grad teams & 4 undergrad teams; $5k Purse)
    February-
    Congratulations to Patrick McManigal for winning the 3-in-5 pitch competition at the 2023 College of Engineering Graduate Symposium.
    February-
    Our research receives support from the Great Plains IDeA-CTR. Project funded in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Wellsandt (UNMC).

    2022-

    December-
    Our research receives support from the Voelte-Keegan Bioengineering Support program.
    October-
    Prof. Markvicka shared an overview of the lab's current research to U.S. congressional staff members as part of the annual NU System congressional staff visit (Omaha, NE).
    October-
    Prof. Markvicka presents at the Surgery Research Forum - hosted by Regenerative Medicine (UNMC, virtual).
    October-
    Prof. Markvicka and Rennard presents at the NSRI Fellows program meeting (virtual).
    October-
    Review on the role of biomechanics in COPD with Yentes (Texas A&M), Rennard (UNMC), and Zhang (UNL) labs is published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
    October-
    Prof. Markvicka presents at the 2022 Society of Engineering Science Annual Technical Meeting in College Station, Texas.
    October-
    Sequoia Truong presents at the 2022 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
    October-
    Congratulations to Merjen Palvanova and John Helzer for receiving the John A Woollam Foundation Scholarship for the 2022-2023 AY.
    September-
    Prof. Markvicka presents at the 2022 ASME Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS) Conference in Dearborn, Michigan.
    September-
    Prof. Markvicka presents at the 2022 NASA Thermal and Fluids Analysis Workshop (TFAWS, virtual).
    August-
    Paper on nonlinear energy sinks with quasi-zero stiffness with Moore lab is published in the International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics.
    August-
    Congratulations to Sequoia Truong who was selected as the top poster from the biomedical engineering REU program at the annual Summer Research Symposium.
    August-
    Our research receives support from a local Nebraska business with matching support from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.
    July-
    Paper led by Sean Frey from Prof. Michael Bartlett's group at VT on octopus-inspired adhesive skins for underwater adhesion is published in Science Advances and featured as the cover article.
    July-
    Congratulations to Ethan Krings, Spencer Pak, and Kasey Moomau for receiving a NASA Nebraska Space Grant Fellowship to support their research projects.
    July-
    Our research receives support from the University of Nebraska Collaboration Initiative. Project funded in collaboration with Profs. Stephen Rennard (UNMC), Brian Lowes (UNMC), Ran Dai (UNMC), Kathryn Cooper (UNO), and Jenna Yentes (Texas A&M).
    July-
    Undergraduate student, Bridget Peterkin, was featured in the “She’s a Scientist” a video series.
    June-
    Our lab hosted the Nebraska TRIO Program LPS middle school students.
    June-
    Our lab hosted a workshop at the 2022 Big Red Engineering Summer Camp on wearable technologies. The workshop is open source, see details here.
    May-
    Prof. Markvicka has been named an NSRI Fellow.
    May-
    Aaron Haake receives the Outstanding MME Senior Award and was recognized as Chancellor’s Scholar during commencement for maintaining 4.0 grade-point average.
    April-
    Renick Wilson successfully defends his master's thesis! He will start at Raytheon this summer.
    April-
    Our research receives support from the College of Engineering Healthcare Technology Fund.
    April-
    Our paper on a wearable electronic nose device was selected as a top contributed paper and received the Five-Minute Pitch Competition Award. See the five-minute pitch video here.
    April-
    Matthew McManigal presents at the ASME Design of Medical Devices Conference on a wearable device for monitoring joint-level human motion. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Wellsandt's group from UNMC.
    April-
    Prof. Markvicka presents at the ASME Design of Medical Devices Conference on a wearable electronic nose device. This work was led by Jason Finnegan and is in collaboration with Prof. Stephen Rennard from UNMC and Prof. Jenna Yentes from Texas A&M.
    April-
    Matthew McManigal successfully defends his master's thesis! He will start full time at the University of Nebraska Medical Center this summer.
    April-
    Congratulations to Aaron Haake, an undergraduate student in the lab, on being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Nebraska Today article.
    April-
    Congratulations to Eric Vander Woude Jr, an undergraduate student in the lab, on being awarded a DoD SMART Scholarship!
    April-
    Paper led by Aaron Haake and Ravi Tutika on direct ink write programming of liquid metal microstructure is published in Advanced Materials and featured as a Frontispiece article. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Michael Bartlett's group from VT

    We are grateful for the support from the following organizations:

    • Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Biomedical Research Development Fund and our Industry partners.

  • Smart Materials and Robotics Laboratory
    Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering
    College of Engineering
    University of Nebraska-Lincoln

    • © 2018 Smart Materials and Robotics Laboratory