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About

Bianca S. Homberg is a robotics researcher whose work spans soft robotics, robotic manipulation, and human-robot interaction through natural language. She is best known for her pioneering contributions to proprioceptive soft robotic grasping, developing compliant robotic hands capable of robustly grasping and identifying objects using only internal state measurements — a significant departure from traditional rigid manipulators that rely on precise environmental knowledge. Her 2015 paper on haptic object identification using a modular soft robotic gripper has garnered 281 citations, establishing her as a prominent voice in the field, while her 2018 follow-up on robust proprioceptive grasping further extended this work with an autonomous grasping system, accumulating an additional 170 citations. Beyond manipulation, Homberg has also contributed to semantic mapping, proposing algorithms that allow robots to build human-centric environmental models from natural language descriptions — bridging the gap between linguistic communication and spatial reasoning. This dual focus on physical dexterity and language-grounded cognition reflects a broad vision for versatile, human-aware robotic systems. With over 500 citations across her most impactful work, Homberg's research continues to influence both the design of adaptive robotic hardware and intelligent robot-environment interaction.