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About

Marianne Maertens is a leading researcher in the field of human and robotic grasping, whose work bridges computational neuroscience, biomechanics, and robotics. Her core research explores how humans and robots can exploit environmental constraints—such as surfaces, edges, and gravity—to achieve robust, versatile grasping without relying on precise internal models. In her landmark 2015 paper, "Exploitation of environmental constraints in human and robotic grasping" (199 citations), she demonstrated that grasping is fundamentally a process of leveraging motion in contact to counteract uncertainty, rather than requiring exact state estimation. Maertens further advanced the field by analyzing over 3,400 human grasping trials across 25 objects, leading to a compact representation of single-object grasping (2016, 28 citations) and a taxonomy of human grasping behavior (2015, 25 citations) designed for transfer to robotic hands. Her work has been instrumental in shifting robotic grasping from rigid, model-based approaches toward more adaptive, constraint-driven strategies. With cumulative citations exceeding 300, Maertens’ contributions are shaping the next generation of dexterous robotic manipulation, offering practical insights for both autonomous systems and prosthetic design.