Paul Bardunias

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

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About

Paul Bardunias is a leading researcher in biomimetic construction and animal architecture, with a focus on the decentralized coordination mechanisms that enable termites to build their massive, complex mounds. His work bridges biology and robotics, most notably through his highly cited 2021 study, "Validating a Termite-Inspired Construction Coordination Mechanism Using an Autonomous Robot" (18 citations). In this landmark paper, Bardunias demonstrated that humidity gradients serve as a key environmental cue guiding mound expansion in savannah-dwelling *Macrotermes* termites, and he successfully validated this mechanism by implementing it in an autonomous robot. This contribution not only deepens our understanding of collective animal behavior but also provides a blueprint for swarm robotics and autonomous construction systems. By showing how simple, local sensing can produce sophisticated, global structures without centralized control, Bardunias’s work has had a significant impact on both entomology and engineering. His research continues to inspire new approaches to distributed problem-solving in robotics and architecture.