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About

Justine Rembisz is a pioneering roboticist whose work bridges the gap between bio-inspired locomotion and soft robotics. Her research centers on modular snake robots, series elastic actuation, and jamming-based soft mechanisms—technologies designed for disaster response and unstructured environments. Rembisz’s most influential contribution is the development of parameterized and scripted gaits for hyper-redundant snake robots, enabling them to thread through collapsed structures and confined spaces. Her 2009 paper on this topic has garnered 247 citations, while her earlier work on differentiable gaits (141 citations) laid the mathematical foundation for smooth, adaptive locomotion. She also led the design of the SEA Snake robot (112 citations), a series elastic actuated platform that combines torque, velocity, and position control with high-speed communication—a critical step toward safe, compliant human-robot interaction. In soft robotics, her 2010 paper on jamming as an enabling technology (98 citations) introduced a novel actuation architecture that modulates force and direction using granular jamming, expanding the capabilities of soft systems. Though her early work on colony robot localization (2 citations) is less cited, it demonstrates her long-standing interest in distributed, low-cost robotic swarms. Rembisz’s work continues to inspire researchers in field robotics, soft actuation, and modular design.