Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Itai Cohen is a pioneering physicist and engineer whose research sits at the remarkable intersection of microscale robotics, origami-inspired fabrication, and biophysics. Based at Cornell University, Cohen has built a distinguished career transforming fundamental physical principles into revolutionary microscopic machines that push the boundaries of what autonomous devices can achieve at the smallest scales. Cohen's most celebrated contributions center on the design and manufacture of microscopic robots—devices small enough to navigate biological environments and engineered environments alike. His landmark 2020 paper on electronically integrated microscopic robots (344 citations) demonstrated that mass-manufactured, functional machines could be realized at scales previously thought impossible. Building on graphene-based origami bimorphs (176 citations) and shape-memory actuators (126 citations), his lab has systematically advanced the toolkit for programming, powering, and controlling these devices, culminating in robots with onboard digital control and magnetically programmable diffractive capabilities. Beyond robotics, Cohen has made significant contributions to insect flight mechanics, revealing how sensory-motor systems stabilize pitch during flapping flight (169 citations). His interdisciplinary work—spanning atomic layer deposition, metamaterials, and self-organization—reflects a rare breadth of vision. With hundreds of citations across multiple fields, Cohen's research is reshaping our understanding of how intelligent, autonomous systems can operate at the microscale.