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About

Mike Y. Michelis is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of soft robotics, computational modeling, and biohybrid systems, whose work is reshaping how engineers design and simulate the next generation of compliant, adaptive machines. His highly cited overview of soft robotics (2022, 235 citations) established him as a key voice in articulating the field's promise and limitations, offering a comprehensive roadmap for researchers worldwide. Michelis has made substantial contributions to bridging the gap between simulation and physical reality, developing differentiable finite element methods and learned residual physics approaches to improve sim-to-real transfer for soft robots — a notoriously difficult challenge in the field. His work on electrohydraulic actuators advances low-voltage, energy-efficient artificial muscles for untethered robots, while his fluid-structure interaction solver, Aquarium, provides a fully differentiable platform for underwater robotics research. Perhaps most remarkably, Michelis has extended his expertise into biohybrid robotics, engineering living cardiac and skeletal muscle tissues as biological actuators with controlled contractility and optimized force transmission. This rare breadth — spanning computational physics, materials science, and tissue engineering — positions Michelis as an exceptionally versatile innovator whose cumulative work, totaling over 400 citations, is actively defining the future of soft and biohybrid robotics.