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About

Jorge Cham is a roboticist whose research sits at the intersection of biomimetics, legged locomotion, and advanced manufacturing. Best known for his pioneering work on hexapedal robots, Cham helped establish Shape Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) as a transformative fabrication approach for creating robots that embed passive compliance and mechanical intelligence directly into their structure — dramatically closing the performance gap between biological organisms and robotic systems. His landmark 2002 paper "Fast and Robust: Hexapedal Robots via Shape Deposition Manufacturing" has accumulated over 250 citations and remains a foundational reference in bio-inspired robotics, demonstrating that structural design choices alone could yield remarkable speed and robustness without relying on complex sensing or control. Cham further contributed to understanding stride adaptation and open-loop dynamic stability in running hexapods, advancing the field's grasp of how self-stabilizing mechanical properties reduce the computational burden on controllers. His research has also extended into rehabilitation robotics, exploring variability in robotic training of locomotion in spinal cord injury models. With nearly 800 cumulative citations across his most-cited works, Cham's career reflects a sustained commitment to understanding and replicating nature's elegant locomotion strategies through principled engineering.