Cecilia Laschi
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piaggio (Italy), Center for Micro-BioRobotics, Google (United States), Italian Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Cairo University, Piaggio Aerospace (Italy), Santen (Japan), Charles River Laboratories (Netherlands), Robotics Research (United States), University of Cyprus, University of Dundee, Waseda University, IT+Robotics (Italy), Berkeley College, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
Papers
323
Total Citations
19,540
H-Index
58
About
Cecilia Laschi stands as one of the most influential pioneers in soft robotics, a field she has helped define, expand, and legitimize over the past two decades. Her research sits at the intersection of bioinspired design, compliant materials, and intelligent control, drawing extensively from nature — most notably the octopus — to reimagine what robots can be and do. Her 2013 paper "Soft Robotics: A Bioinspired Evolution in Robotics" has become a foundational text in the field, accumulating over 2,000 citations and helping crystallize soft robotics as a distinct and rigorous discipline. Laschi's octopus-inspired robotic arms, introduced as early as 2011 and 2012, demonstrated that robots built from flexible, muscle-like structures could achieve remarkable dexterity and adaptability in unstructured environments — capabilities rigid robots fundamentally cannot match. Her subsequent work expanded into biomedical applications, sensor integration using recurrent neural networks, and sophisticated control strategies for soft manipulators, collectively cited thousands of times. With a body of work spanning foundational theory, novel hardware, and advanced machine learning-based control, Laschi has shaped the intellectual backbone of modern soft robotics research worldwide.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Soft robotics: a bioinspired evolution in robotics2,042 citations · 2013
- 2Soft robotics: Technologies and systems pushing the boundaries of robot abilities1,489 citations · 2016
- 3Biomedical applications of soft robotics1,358 citations · 2018
- 4Soft Robot Arm Inspired by the Octopus960 citations · 2012
- 5Soft robot perception using embedded soft sensors and recurrent neural networks648 citations · 2019
- 6Control Strategies for Soft Robotic Manipulators: A Survey624 citations · 2018
- 7Dynamic Model of a Multibending Soft Robot Arm Driven by Cables466 citations · 2014
- 8An octopus-bioinspired solution to movement and manipulation for soft robots461 citations · 2011
- 9A Bioinspired Soft Robotic Gripper for Adaptable and Effective Grasping437 citations · 2015
- 10